BrainStem - Stem Cell Center of Excellence in Neurology

Mar 11, 2019

Details from Kristine Freude's and Poul Hyttel's visit to Bangalore in February 2019.

Category: News

Posted by: Anonymous

Last month Kristine Freude and Poul Hyttel visited NeuroStem partner Instem in Bangalore, India. After taking a tour at the stem cell laboratories and imaging facilities, the visit continued with a series of presentations regarding the progress so far. Some of the highlights were:

• Sarayu from Ravi Muddashetty’s group presented her results on the primary neurons exposed to iPSC conditioned media from APOE 4/4, APOE3/3 and APOE KO. Showing effects on pERK and pEF2 under acute and continuous treatment. There was discussion to extend this collaborative part further, since Gunnar Gouras (BrainStem partner) is currently investigating the effect of those APOE lines by using conditioned media from astrocytes and applying those on primary neurons. A Skype meeting to align and progress this project in the most productive manner is planned between UCPH, InSTEM, ULUND and Bioneer on March 19, 2019. 
• Akash Gulyani’s group presented their mitochondria life stains, which can distinguish between abnormally folded cristae in mitochondria vs. normally folded cristae. These labeling methods will be implemented on the commonly generated iPSC derived neurons. Poul Hyttel has initiated an additional collaboration using the TEM for analysis of plenaria. A student from Akash Gulyani’s group will come for a research exchange to UCPH to work with Poul Hyttel. 
• Kristine Freude presented the data from the PSEN1 derived neurons and their isogenic control. 
• Sheetal from Dasaradhi Palakodeti’s group presented the preliminary analyses from the RNAseq from neurons derived from PSEN1 iPSC and their CRISPR-Cas9 gene edited controls. The discussion mostly focused on quality control and the observation that the PCA showed more clustering depended on the people handling the material than patient and control clustering. The analysis is aligned with Jan Gorodkin's group in UCPH and a Skype meeting is planned once all quality control is completed and the preliminary analysis is done.

The hosts did not forget to introduce Kristine and Poul to the local cuisine and local sights.