Thursday, 04 April 2019 13:40

Netherlands: Parkinson on-a-Chip Featured

In a Dutch-Luxemburg cooperation project, researchers have started the development of a "Midbrain-on-a-Chip" disease model. Aim is to investigate Parkinson's disease.


With the help of human midbrain organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells, scientists from Eindhoven University of Technology, from the University of Luxembourg as well as from the start-up company BI/OND from Delft, Netherlands, want to understand the mechanisms involved in neuronal degeneration during the Parkinson's disease.

Organoids are small spherical structures in miniaturized dimensions, which can, in the best case, content all cell types that also occur in an organ. The individual cell types develop e.g. from induced pluripotent stem cells in culture. They order themselves in a reasonable arrangement. A problem can arise if the culture is two-dimensional and static. Than the miniorgans are only superficially supplied with oxygen and nutrients, which make that the cells inside the structures die quickly.

The team of scientists is working on this problem: the start-up company BI/OND is focusing on a microfluidic system that is able to move the cell structure more physiologically-dynamically ensuring that the nutrient medium flow similar to that of an real organism. The aim is the long-term culture of this miniaturized midbrain under controlled conditions in order to investigate the mechanisms of the Parkinson's disease.

 The initial cells for the development of the mini-midbrain originate from PD patients.

The scientists have published their work in npj Parkinson's Disease:
Lisa M. Smits, Lydia Reinhardt, Peter Reinhardt, Michael Glatza, Anna S. Monzel, Nancy Stanslowsky, Marcelo D. Rosato-Siri, Alessandra Zanon, Paul M. Antony, Jessica Bellmann, Sarah M. Nicklas, Kathrin Hemmer, Xiaobing Qing, Emanuel Berger, Norman Kalmbach, Marc Ehrlich, Silvia Bolognin, Andrew A. Hicks, Florian Wegner, Jared L. Sterneckert & Jens C. Schwamborn (2019). Modeling Parkinson’s disease in midbrain-like organoids. npj Parkinson's Disease volume 5, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41531-019-0078-4


Source:
https://www.gobiond.com/2019/04/03/bi-ond-joins-forces/