TOKYO — An international research team, including members from the University of Tokyo, developed a sensor inspired by the lateral line system in fish to monitor the pulse of lab-grown 3D heart tissue. The device, called a biomechanical well plate, transmits data wirelessly and was described in an article published in Nature Sensors in 2026.

The biomechanical well plate is a small white box containing four liquid-filled wells. Each well has small holes at the bottom and an air cavity beneath it. When a cardiac organoid, which is typically no larger than 3 millimeters, is placed in a well, its beat causes the liquid to bulge into the air cavity, altering the air pressure. This change in air pressure bends a cantilever sensor, which then sends live data to an app wirelessly. The team that developed the device includes researchers from Australia, the U.S., and Japan.

Associate Professor Timothée Mouterde of the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo stated, "Our device measures the pulse strength and rhythm of cardiac organoids using a biomechanical multi-well plate as the foundation." He added, "The design means that you can parallelize many measurements, testing different types and concentrations of treatments, while wirelessly receiving the data to see how the organoids respond in real time."

Mouterde said, "The challenge was that there is no direct contact between the liquid that holds the heart organoids and the sensor." He explained, "Instead, we created a water interface which traps an air cavity below, and the only reason it does not flood the cavity is because of carefully managed surface tension which we first worked out through analytical computer models." Mouterde noted, "It is a fine balance, as the liquid needs to be able to move into the air pocket without flooding it." He said, "The beating of the organoid deforms water into the cavity before bouncing back, causing pressure fluctuations which compress the air, activating the cantilever sensor below and enabling us to pick up the heartbeat."

The fish lateral line, which inspired the sensor, is a biological feature that runs along a fish's body, allowing water to enter through tiny pores. Within this system, water pushes against rows of small gelatinous caps, called cupulae, which cover sensory hair cells. Mouterde said, "Because our device detects change in pressure, it is very good for measuring the fluctuations of a heartbeat and how it may change - becoming faster, slower or more irregular - in response to drug treatments." He added, "It also has a key advantage over animal testing as we can directly test drug treatments on human tissue, opening the way for future more personalized drug therapies which consider a person's individual genetics." Mouterde said, "As an engineer rather than a biologist or pharmacologist, our research demonstrates the advantages of cross-disciplinary collaboration and what we can build together."