iPSC Seminars: Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU) (Virtual)
The iPSC Seminar Series at The Neuro
Supported by Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives and STEMCELL Technologies, The Neuro’s iPSC Seminar Series welcomes trainees and senior scientists working with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to present their cutting-edge research. The Seminar Series intends to foster collaborations within the network of laboratories working with iPSCs in Montreal, Canada and around the world.
If you, or someone you know, would be interested in presenting please contact us to secure a spot on the schedule.
To register: Eventbrite
Speaker : Martin Berryer, PhD
The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, USA
Talk : Automated High-Throughput Synaptic Screen in Human Induced Neurons
The synapse is a fundamental point of communication in the nervous system, and deeper insight into synaptic mechanisms is critical for our understanding of normal brain function as well as dysfunction in developmental and degenerative diseases. While diverse brain cell types can now be generated from human pluripotent stem cells in vitro, knowledge of human synaptogenesis remains incomplete. We therefore developed a novel and scalable assay for automated high-content quantification of synaptic development in vitro using human neurons and astrocytes. We employed this phenotypic screening strategy to uncover modulators of human synaptogenesis from a small molecule library and successfully identified a set of diverse compounds that increase the synaptic network connectivity in human neural co-culture. Our results demonstrate the power of phenotyping assay in human neurons derived from pluripotent stem cells and provide a robust platform for the interrogation of neuronal connectivity in developmental and degenerative diseases.
