PNAS: James Thomson & Colleagues Use Stem Cell to Predict Neural Toxicity

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Stem cells have a multitude of uses, not the least of which is to create tissue models that reflect human physiology. Such stem cell-derived models have enormous potential in research and application.

One possible use, developed by a team of scientists from UC Santa Barbara, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison, involves reducing the number of drug failures in clinical trials and offering a cost-effective approach for assessing chemical safety.

The researchers have developed a screening system for predicting developmental neurotoxicity "damage caused to nervous tissue by toxic substances" using stem cells to model features of the developing human brain. The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To begin, the team produced model human neural tissue by culturing stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells, vascular cells and microglia on engineered hydrogels. These precursor cells self-assembled into three-dimensional neural tissue constructs with features that resemble the developing human brain. Such tissues are often referred to as 'organoids.'
 

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Professor James Thomson

News Date: 

Monday, September 21, 2015