Abstract

Leveraging Novel Technologies for Human iPSC-based Screening

Xianmin Zeng, Associate Professor, Buck Institute for Research on Aging

Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology offers the benefits of a cell line coupled with the advantage of using human primary cells. We have developed a panel of iPSC lines for neurotoxicity assays and disease modeling. These include: 1) control lines, 2) patient-specific lines, 3) lineage-specific knock-in reporters, 4) isogenic controls of single and double knock-outs. We have also established scalable protocols for generating differentiated cells in an assay ready format. I will discuss the utility of these lines for neurotoxicity assays including assays to determine the specificity of different neural cell types for a small range of chemicals and drugs from the Tox21 library, as well as for neuroprotective assays with dopaminergic neurons.