Congratulations to Aishu and Poppy on their insightful News & views article, which was just published in Nature Materials. The invited article jointly authored together with Prof Thomas Iskratsch discusses the role of the extracellular matrix in cardiac ageing and highlighting a recent publication by the Young Lab (Sun et al, Nat Mat, 2025, published in the same issue of the journal).

The extracellular matrix (ECM) support our bodies’ cells structurally, but also provides biochemical and mechanical signals that are needed for proper functioning of the heart and other organs. However the ECM undergoes changes during ageing, which includes alterations its stiffness, viscoelasticity, molecular composition, receptor–ligand presentation, and other properties.

The published News & views article provides a background on these extracellular matrix properties in guiding cardiac cell phenotype, the need for new model systems, as well as the recently developed hybrid system that is presented in the work from Sun et al. It further presents future perspectives and how this work could be extended to other cell types or research questions.