Vascular Biotech Corp — Detroit, MI — Founded 2023
The first 3D benchtop authentic human model of heart disease.
Atherosclerosis is the world's leading cause of death, yet the drugs meant to treat it are validated almost exclusively in mice — a species that cannot exhibit the human disease phenotype, no matter how the model is engineered. We replaced the mouse with a living, tissue-engineered human blood vessel and induced the same pathogenic cues that drive early atherosclerosis formation in real human arteries.
The disease burden
World's leading cause of death
The mouse problem
No mouse model exhibits human early atherosclerosis phenotype
Our platform
One species, start to finish: human
01 — The Problem
Four decades of cardiac drugs, tested on the wrong species
Atherosclerosis — the buildup of fatty solids inside artery walls — remains the world's leading cause of death, underlying most heart attacks and strokes. Yet nearly every compound that has ever reached a human atherosclerosis trial was validated first in a mouse.
The trouble is structural: mice, even genetically engineered ones, cannot develop the human form of the disease. Their lipid metabolism, artery wall architecture, and early atherosclerosis composition all diverge from ours in ways no knockout or diet protocol has ever closed. A compound that "reverses" atherosclerosis in a mouse is being tested against a disease the mouse never actually had — a reason, entirely unrelated to the drug itself, that so many candidates fail once they reach people.
We think the fix isn't a better mouse. It's a model built from human tissue in the first place.
“No existing mouse model exhibits an authentic human early atherosclerosis phenotype — at any dose, on any diet.”
“Species mismatch is a leading, and largely invisible, cause of cardiac drug attrition.”
02 — Our Platform
A living human artery, grown on the benchtop
Our core platform technology is a tissue-engineered blood vessel: a living, human-cell-derived vascular construct with the layered wall architecture of a real artery. Onto this base structure, we induce cardiac pathogenic cues that drive it toward an atherosclerotic disease state — reproducing early atherosclerosis formation the way it actually happens in human tissue.
- 01
Engineer the vessel
Human vascular and immune cells self-assemble around 3D-printed guides into a tissue-engineered blood vessel with authentic wall architecture and physiology.
- 02
Induce disease
Lipid and inflammatory cues drive the living vessel toward early atherosclerosis formation, the same way it unfolds inside a real human artery.
- 03
Read the biology
Direct, benchtop access to early atherosclerosis development, drug response, and mechanism — in human tissue, with no cross-species translation gap to correct for.
03 — Why It Matters
The only 3D model built from human artery cells
For the first time, researchers can study atherosclerosis progression, test drug candidates, and probe mechanism in tissue that actually develops the human disease — not a proxy for it. We believe this changes the shape of cardiac drug discovery: fewer late-stage failures caused by species mismatch, faster iteration on mechanism, and a foundation for the kind of precision cardiology research that mouse models were never able to support.
For pharma & biotech
De-risk candidates earlier by testing directly on living human vascular tissue, before a program ever reaches the clinic.
For academic researchers
Study early atherosclerosis pathogenesis and failure mechanisms without extrapolating across species — the biology in front of you is the biology you're trying to explain.
For the field
A foundation for a broader library of authentic human disease models, starting with the world's leading cause of death.
04 — About Us
Built in Detroit, built around one hard problem
Vascular Biotech Corp was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. We exist because the field's tools never matched the job: decades of cardiac drug discovery built on a species that cannot get the disease we're trying to treat.
Our team works on a single platform — tissue-engineered human blood vessels — in service of a single mission: give researchers a model of heart disease that finally looks like the disease.
Founded
2023
Headquarters
Detroit, Michigan
Platform
Tissue-engineered blood vessels
Focus
Human atherosclerosis disease models
Get in Touch
Talk to us about your research
Whether you're evaluating drug candidates, studying early atherosclerosis mechanism, or exploring a partnership — we'd like to hear from you.
hello@vascularbiotech.com
Detroit, Michigan