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SELECTBIO Conferences Organoids and Organs-on-Chips Europe 2022

Cláudia Saraiva's Biography



Cláudia Saraiva, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Luxembourg

Dr. Cláudia Saraiva, a Biochemistry by training, holds a PhD in Bioengineering with specialization in neurosciences from the MIT Portugal Doctoral Program, University NOVA of Lisbon, Portugal. During her PhD she studied the therapeutic potential of microRNA-loaded nanoparticles in neural stem cell-based brain repair strategies in a context of neurodegenerative disease and stroke. The work was developed under the supervision of Dr. Liliana Bernardino (Covilhã, Portugal) and co-supervision of Dr. Lino Ferreira (Coimbra, Portugal). Part of the PhD work regarding stroke was developed at the Laboratory for Experimental Brain Research, Wallenberg Neuroscience Center, Lund University (Sweden) under supervision of Dr. Karsten Ruscher. Cláudia is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Developmental and Cellular Biology Group at the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB). Her work focus on the optimization of novel 3D cultures and modeling of neurodegenerative disorders, namely Parkinson’s disease.

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Midbrain Organoids for Parkinson’s Disease Modeling

Wednesday, 22 June 2022 at 11:30

Add to Calendar ▼2022-06-22 11:30:002022-06-22 12:30:00Europe/LondonMidbrain Organoids for Parkinson’s Disease ModelingOrganoids and Organs-on-Chips Europe 2022 in Rotterdam, The NetherlandsRotterdam, The NetherlandsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most prevalent disorder worldwide and its incidence is rising. Nevertheless, few advances in PD treatment have been observed. Therefore, understanding of PD associated mechanisms using novel complex and translatable models is timely. In our lab, we developed 3D cultures that resemble the human midbrain (midbrain organoids, MOs) through guided differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The MOs are a complex system in terms of cellular composition and structural organization. Using PD patient-derived MOs we demonstrate that not only they resemble the midbrain organization but they also recapitulate key features of the PD pathology, such as dopaminergic neuron differentiation. Using this technology, we are currently investigating the role of the recently described Miro1 protein in dopaminergic differentiation in PD. Using high content imaging and western blotting we observed that a gain-of-function in Miro1 results in lower levels of dopaminergic neuros. Also Miro1-mutant MOs show a mitochondrial impairment when compared with healthy controls. Altogether, this work shows the importance of Miro1 in the pathology of Parkinson, and shed light into a possible novel and convergent pathway in PD.


Add to Calendar ▼2022-06-21 00:00:002022-06-22 00:00:00Europe/LondonOrganoids and Organs-on-Chips Europe 2022Organoids and Organs-on-Chips Europe 2022 in Rotterdam, The NetherlandsRotterdam, The NetherlandsSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com