Towards Neuronal Cell Fate Engineering

Date

Oct 29, 2015

Time

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Speaker

Dr. Volker Busskamp

Affiliation

TU Dresden, CRTD

Series

IMB - Seminar

Language

en

Main Topic

Biologie

Other Topics

Biologie, Medizin, Informatik

Host

IMB

Description

The molecular events during neurogenesis from human stem cells are poorly understood. We have developed a protocol to drive human induced pluripotent stem cells to neurons by transcription factor overexpression resulting in a homogeneous population of bipolar neurons within four days. Due to this high homogeneity score, we were able to perform RNA sequencing of cell population samples and extracted the underlying gene regulatory cascades by a system biology approach. By modifying key transcription factors within the network we were able to alter the neuronal cell type suggesting that transcription factors can act as tunable differentiation control button during neurogenesis. To this end, we enlarge our datasets and knowledge to control specific transcription factors during neurogenesis to engineer specific neurons of interest. The long term goal is to use these neurons to assemble neuronal circuits in a targeted and reproducible way to generate biological computers.

Last modified: Oct 14, 2015, 4:20:26 PM