Creating Patient-Specific Neural Cells for the In Vitro Study of Brain Disorders

• Main Authors: Brennand, Kristen J (Author), Marchetto, M. Carol (Author), Benvenisty, Nissim (Author), Brustle, Oliver (Author), Ebert, Allison (Author), Izpisua Belmonte, Juan Carlos (Author), Kaykas, Ajamete (Author), Lancaster, Madeline A (Author), Livesey, Frederick J (Author), McConnell, Michael J (Author), McKay, Ronald D (Author), Morrow, Eric M (Author), Muotri, Alysson R (Author), Panchision, David M (Author), Rubin, Lee L (Author), Sawa, Akira (Author), Soldner, Frank (Author), Song, Hongjun (Author), Studer, Lorenz (Author), Temple, Sally (Author), Vaccarino, Flora M (Author), Wu, Jun (Author), Vanderhaeghen, Pierre (Author), Gage, Fred H (Author), Jaenisch, Rudolf (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology (Contributor), Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier, 2016-01-13T17:11:00Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 As a group, we met to discuss the current challenges for creating meaningful patient-specific in vitro models to study brain disorders. Although the convergence of findings between laboratories and patient cohorts provided us confidence and optimism that hiPSC-based platforms will inform future drug discovery efforts, a number of critical technical challenges remain. This opinion piece outlines our collective views on the current state of hiPSC-based disease modeling and discusses what we see to be the critical objectives that must be addressed collectively as a field.