Abstract

Using Stem Cells Models To Understand Effects Of Gene And Environment On Disease

Zameel Cader, Director and Principal Scientist, IMI StemBANCC, University of Oxford

In IMI StemBANCC we are generating the human induced pluripotent stem cell (hIPSC) resources to improve drug discovery in neurological disorders. We have iPSC lines generated from a range of neurodegenerative disorders, neuropsychiatric conditions and pain disorders. We have also developed robust differentiation protocols to generate relevant cell types. A critical step for such tools to have value in drug discovery is to demonstrate that iPSC that can help explain disease mechanisms and identify cellular disease phenotypes. This includes detecting and understanding the effect of gene and environment despite the inherent variance in iPSC based experiments. We have been conducting experiments to explore these issues using migraine and monogenic Alzheimer’s Disease as exemplars.