Join our Cuore Workshop. Explore the Cuore 3D Engineered Muscle Contractility Platform through real user applications and a technical walkthrough by the Optics11 Life team.
Event details
Date & Time:16 April 2026 | 10:00 to 15:30
Location: Miray House, Sylviusweg 62, 2333 BE, the Netherlands
Cost: Free to attend, online or in person (Please note: In-person attendance is free, but limited to 12 participants)
A full day of science, technology, and discussion around engineered muscle tissues
Optics11 Life and the Leiden Organ-on-Chip Center invite you to join a one-day workshop focused on Cuore, our platform for measuring contractility in 3D engineered muscle tissues. This event is designed for researchers interested in skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle applications, as well as those looking to better understand the practical use of functional readouts in advanced tissue models.
The workshop combines a 2-hour technical session led by the Optics11 Life team with invited talks from users working across different research areas. Together, these sessions will offer a practical view of the technology, the type of data it can generate, and the role it can play in disease modeling, assay development, and translational research.
Participants are welcome to attend in person or online. Registration is free of charge.
Why attend: See how Cuore works in practice
This workshop is built to give attendees both a technical understanding of the Cuore platform and a broader view of how it is being applied in real research settings. During the morning, the Optics11 Life team will introduce the technology, demonstrate the system workflow, and present examples of generated data. In the afternoon, invited users will share application-driven insights from their own work.
You will learn more about how Cuore supports the development of 3D engineered skeletal, cardiac, and smooth muscle tissues, and how it provides functional contraction force readouts that can strengthen model validation and experimental design.
The workshop will also create space for discussion around important questions in the field, including tissue maturity, assay robustness, automation, stimulation strategies, and drug response studies.
What you will learn: Technical walkthrough and on-site demonstration
The morning session will provide a practical introduction to the Cuore platform, including:
- Introduction to the technology and its core principles
- Demonstration of Cuore contractility platform
- Videos showing tissue casting, cell culture steps, and force measurements
- Software demonstration covering calibration, recordings, and data output
- Examples of custom exercise protocols for engineered tissues
- A closer look at the data generated with Cuore
- Discussion of the platform vision and next development steps
This part of the workshop is ideal for researchers who want to understand both the system setup and the broader possibilities of using Cuore within their own workflows.
Learn from researchers working across multiple muscle models
The afternoon talks will focus on how Cuore can support different research questions and tissue types.
In skeletal muscle research, discussions will focus on how Cuore can help model diseases such as Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), which experimental criteria matter most, and how the platform can support studies on drug responses and tissue performance.
In standardization and automation, speakers will explore how Cuore may be adapted to industry needs, how to improve assay robustness and reproducibility, and how more advanced engineered tissue systems can be translated into scalable workflows.
In cardiac muscle research, topics includes how 3D engineered cardiac tissues are generated, what kind of data can be collected, and how the platform could support studies on cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, and pharmacological response.
In smooth muscle and vascular applications, discussion will focus on how 3D engineered vascular tissues are created, what functional outputs can be measured, and what challenges remain in tissue maturation, stimulation, and measurement.
Speaker lineup
The afternoon session will feature invited speakers from leading institutions:
Roy Augustinus
PhD candidate at the Leiden University Medical Center, Human Genetics.
Banu Ölmez
Senior Scientist Discovery | Charles River Laboratories
Katarzyna Kmiotek-Caller
Research Associate at King’s College London, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, School of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine & Sciences
Pepijn Saraber
PhD Candidate | Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht
Department of Biochemistry | FHML
Department of Biomedical Engineering | FHML
Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery | MUMC+
Hosts
Tom Berkers
Product Manager Cuore
Optics11 Life
Svetlana Pasteuning
Scientific Business Development Manager
Optics11 Life
The workshop will be supported by the Optics11 Life team, together with representatives from the Leiden Organ-on-Chip Center.
Program overview
9:30 – 10:00
Welcome, coffee, and cookies
10:00 – 12:00
Optics11 Life introduction to Cuore technology
12:00 – 13:00
Lunch
13:00 – 13:30
Roy Augustinus, Leiden University Medical Center
Modeling Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD)
13:30 – 14:00
Banu Ölmez, Charles River Laboratories
Automation and standardization for skeletal applications
14:00 – 14:15
Break
14:15 – 14:45
Katarzyna Kmiotek-Caller, King’s College London
Cardiovascular diseases
14:45 – 15:15
Pepijn Saraber, Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht
3D engineered vascular tissues and modeling Marfan syndrome
15:15 – 15:30
Q&A and closing remarks
15:30 – 17:00
Drinks and informal networking
Cuore: A platform for functional tissue research
Cuore supports the development and analysis of 3D engineered muscle tissues by delivering direct functional measurements of contraction force. The platform is designed to help researchers move beyond structure alone and gain deeper insight into tissue performance.
Key capabilities include:
- Functional readouts of contraction forces
- Automated exercise and complex stimulation patterns
- Screening of potential drug compounds
- Validation of disease and ageing models
- Scalability in a 24-well plate format, with up to 96 tissues
- Compatibility with microscopy, calcium imaging, and molecular or genetic post-analysis
Register for free
Attendance is free, and you can join online or in person. In-person attendance is limited to 12 participants, so we encourage early registration. Reserve your place and join us on 16 April 2026 to explore how Cuore can support your engineered muscle research.
We are looking forward to seeing you there, or online!
