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Purpose of Review Human pluripotent stem cells have the potential to revolutionize the treatment of inborn and degenerative diseases, including aging and autoimmunity. A major barrier to their wider adoption in cell therapies is immune rejection. Genome editing allows for tinkering of the human genome in stem and progenitor cells and raises the prospect for overcoming the immune barriers to transplantation. Recent Findings Initial attempts have focused primarily on the major histocompatibility barrier that is formed by the human leukocyte antigens (HLA). More recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as PD-L1, CD47, or HLA-G, are being explored both, in the presence or absence of HLA, to mitigate immune rejection by the various cellular components of the immune system. Summary In this review, we discuss progress in surmounting immune barriers to cell transplantation, with a particular focus on genetic engineering of human pluripotent stem and progenitor cells and the therapeutic cell types derived from them.

Over the last decade Organ-on-Chip (OOC) emerged as a promising technology for advanced in vitro models, recapitulating key physiological cues. OOC approaches tailored for cardiac tissue engineering resulted in a variety of platforms, some of which integrate stimulation or probing capabilities. Due to manual handling processes, however, a large-scale standardized and robust tissue generation, applicable in an industrial setting, is still out of reach. Here, we present a novel cell injection and tissue generation concept relying on spheroids, which can be produced in large quantities and uniform size from induced pluripotent stem cell-derived human cardiomyocytes. Hydrostatic flow transports and accumulates spheroids in dogbone-shaped cultivation chambers, which subsequently fuse and form aligned, contracting cardiac muscle fibers. Furthermore, we demonstrate electrical stimulation capabilities by utilizing fluidic media connectors as electrodes and provide the blueprint of a low-cost, open-source, scriptable pulse generator. We report on a novel integration strategy of optical O2 sensor spots into resin-based microfluidic systems, enabling in situ determination of O2 partial pressures. Finally, proof-of-concept demonstrating electrical stimulation combined with in situ monitoring of metabolic activity in cardiac tissues is provided. The developed system thus opens the door for advanced OOCs integrating biophysical stimulation as well as probing capabilities and serves as blueprint for the facile and robust generation of high density microtissues in microfluidic modules amenable for scale-up and automation.