One of the greatest challenges in systems biology is the prediction and control of abnormal cardiac behaviour in humans. The dimension of this challenge can be better appreciated if one considers that five billion cells synchronise within a very intricate electrical, mechanical, and vascular system, in order to jointly achieve what is commonly known as a heart beat, pumping the blood through the entire organism. Modelling, analysis and control of this multi-scale system is a multidisciplinary activity, requiring the interaction between physicians, biologists, physicists, engineers and computer scientists. Two common themes of this joint activity are abstraction and composition. The first allows to ignore the aspects of a system which are irrelevant for a particular question. The second allows to divide and conquer the complexity of a system. In this talk I will revise the cardiac abstractions and composition-techniques developed so far, review their strengths and weaknesses, and give a short outlook for the future work