Dr. Paola Arlotta - October 9th 2024, 16:00
VU Amsterdam
Brain Organoids as Avatars to understand Human brain Development and Disease
Department of Stem Cell & Regenertive Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA & Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
“Much remains unknown regarding the mechanisms governing mammalian brain development. Focusing on the cerebral cortex, I will present data on the mechanistic principles that control the developmental generation of cellular diversity in the embryo and consider to what extent processes of cortical development can be replicated outside the embryo, within brain organoids. I will then consider how genetic and environmental factors affect the human developing brain to ultimately cause disease. Emerging evidence indicates that similar disease risk factors are associated with distinct phenotypic outcomes depending on genomic context; such that different individuals show heterogeneous responses to negative stimuli. I will discuss progress in developing human brain organoids that are capable of reproducible, multi-donor development of the forebrain (we have named such organoids: “Chimeroids”), and their use to investigate inter-individual variation in cellular responses to neurotoxic triggers associated with neurodevelopmental disease.”
About dr. Arlotta
Dr. Paola Arlotta is the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. She is a principal investigator at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an Associate member of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of many Academic and Private Institutions, nationally and internationally.
Dr. Arlotta’s research program focuses on the brain, and she uses the embryo and advanced organoid models of the human brain, to gain fundamental understanding of both the principles that govern normal brain development and of previously-inaccessible mechanisms of human neurological disease. Her work has unearthed mechanistic principles by which cells of the cerebral cortex are built, and challenged dogmas on the immutability of neurons within the brain. Her laboratory set a new conceptual framework for the role of myelin in the nervous system, discovering that different types of neurons of the cerebral cortex use myelin differently to implement complex function. She is recognized world-wide as a pioneer and leader in the field of human brain organoids and chimeroids, stem cell-derived laboratory replicas of the human brain that her team developed to unprecedented levels of complexity, reliability and scalability. Using brain organoids, her laboratory investigates the mechanism of human neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophrenia, and works on brand new approaches to the development of therapies for pathologies affecting the human brain.
Dr. Arlotta received her M.S. in biochemistry from the University of Trieste, Italy, and her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Portsmouth, UK. She subsequently completed her postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. She holds a college degree ad honoris from Harvard University and a Ph.D. ad honoris from the University of Munich. She has won numerous awards including the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award, the George Ledlie Prize, the Fannie Cox Prize, the Gutenberg Award, the Pradel Award, the Elena Leucrezia Cornaro Piscopia International Prize, and the Feltrinelli International Prize, among many others. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and her research is published and widely cited in many noteworthy journals including Nature, Science, and Cell, as well as in the popular press.