Panel: Using Stem Cells to Study Neuropsychiatric Disorders - Guo Li Ming, UPENN

PANEL: USING STEM CELLS TO STUDY NEUROPSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

The ability to generate neural derivatives from accessible somatic cells from patients with mental disorders (and appropriate controls) is beginning to make these heretofore “mechanistically-unapproachable” complex conditions amenable to rigorous molecular and cellular interrogation. Links are emerging between psychopathology and dysregulation of synaptogenesis, dendritogenesis, cytoskeleton, channels, glial support and inflammation, to name some examples. This session will provide an update on progress in this emerging area. A key take-away will be an appreciation that stem cell modeling has allowed us to begin to gain previously elusive insights into the potential cellular and molecular underpinnings of pathologies that manifest principally by abnormalities in behavior.

Engineering Brain Organoids for Understanding Human Brain Development and Diseases:
Guo-Li Ming, M.D., Ph.D., Perelman Professor of Neuroscience, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania