Delving into the importance of stem cell models in understanding psychiatric disorders and genetic diversity in research.
The Stanley Center’s Stem Cell Resource, established by Ralda Nehme’s lab, provides a large collection of cell lines from donors with various diagnoses and genetic backgrounds for studying psychiatric disorders.
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are valuable for studying psychiatric conditions as they reflect the genetic landscape of the donor, allowing researchers to manipulate and study cells in the dish.
Nehme’s lab is using iPSCs to study how cells respond to pharmacological perturbations, identify genetic variants associated with cell morphology traits, and develop new cell types like astrocytes to model human diseases more accurately.
Genetic diversity in cell lines is crucial for scientific discovery, representing various gene variants and ancestral backgrounds, and enabling personalized drug studies relevant to different populations.
In the future, better stem cell-based models of psychiatric conditions informed by postmortem brain profiling data are expected, along with increased access to quality-controlled cell lines for research purposes.
Cell biologist and neuroscientist Ralda Nehme established the Stanley Center’s Stem Cell Resource to study the effects of genetic mutations linked to schizophrenia using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from donors. This resource contains frozen cell lines from about 1,000 donors with various diagnoses and ancestral backgrounds, allowing researchers to generate different cell types for more accurate modeling of human diseases. Stem cells offer a unique opportunity to study psychiatric conditions in living human cells, considering the genetic landscape and the limited access to postmortem brain tissue.
Nehme’s lab is conducting studies using iPSCs to investigate how different individuals respond to medications for schizophrenia. By studying cell morphology across various cell lines, they hope to identify genetic variants associated with specific traits. Collaborations with other labs aim to expand the applications of these stem cell models and generate more data to better understand psychiatric disorders. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop better stem cell-based models informed by data profiles from postmortem brains, while also promoting diversity in cell lines and making this type of research more accessible to the scientific community.
