The project

Saturday January 20th, 2018

Neurodegenerative diseases affect the nervous system by inducing degeneration and death of specific neurons, such as cerebral neurons in Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal motor neurons in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Nowadays, there is no cure for most of these pathologies. A therapeutic hope for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases comes from regenerative medicine which holds the promise of protecting and repairing impaired organs and tissues using stem cells. To this end, stem cells need to be differentiated into the neurons that selectively die in the different pathologies. Stem cells-derived neurons have then to be transplanted into the patients nervous system, with the aim of rescuing the normal function of neural circuits.

However, stem cells-derived neurons are not yet ready to be used for the clinical studies in the field of neurodegenerative diseases. Nevertheless, there are promising results from preclinical studies, especially for Parkinson’s disease. Before the beginning of clinical experimentation, it is essential to continue and extend the preclinical studies. The first goal to reach is to set up experimental protocols to generate from stem cells the specific neurons that die in each specific disease.

In our lab, we perform basic and preclinical physiological research to assess the correct functionality of stem cells-derived neurons. Investigating the functionality of this cells and their ability to survive the transplantation and to rescue the damaged circuits is essential to understanding the mechanism underlying the recovery or the therapeutic failure.

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