APDA-funded researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, including Drs. Isabel Lam and Anastasia Kuzkina, under the leadership of Dr. Vikram Khurana, the Director of APDA’s Center for Advanced Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, recently published a paper demonstrating a novel technology that more rapidly turns stem cells created from the cells of an adult (also known as induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs) into brain cells that incorporate the abnormally accumulating protein, alpha-synuclein.
The transformation of iPSCs into brain cells is not new, but existing methodologies take much more time for the brain cells to be created. They are therefore not quick enough to be meaningfully used as a drug-screening tool that tests the effects of multiple compounds on these Parkinson’s-like brain cells. In addition, this new strategy allows researchers to develop models that incorporate a range of proteins that misfold in various neurodegenerative conditions in that quicker timeframe.
Another potential future application of creating brain cells more rapidly, is the potential to not only develop iPSCs and then brain cells from individual patients, but to then also induce accumulation of that patients’ own alpha-synuclein protein captured from body fluids or skin. This would allow testing of specific therapies that may be successful for a particular person. “The funding from APDA through our Center for Advanced Research and postdoctoral fellowship program is particularly important for impactful projects like this because it supports early-career investigators like Drs. Lam and Kuzkina to take on bold and important questions,” said Dr. Khurana. Dr. Lam added, “The models that we developed will allow further mechanistic studies into Parkinson’s disease and related synucleinopathies, and beyond that, we’re excited about their potential for use in personalized, patient-specific cellular models. I’m very grateful for the APDA’s funding support as a recipient of their Post-doctoral Fellowship.”
APDA is proud to support the innovative research of Drs. Lam and Kuzkina, and the team at the APDA Center for Advanced Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Please visit the Research section of our website to learn more about the exciting work that we fund.