What human iPSC-derived disease models can add to your drug discovery project
Despite many technological developments in the past decade, the output of commercial drugs has been relatively ineffective. The lack of physiologically-relevant and predictive cell-based assays is one of the major obstacles. The use of recombinant cell lines or animal models does not fully recapitulate the complexity of human disease. Primary human tissues, on the other hand, are typically difficult to obtain, and not available in the large quantities and sufficiently reliable levels of reproducibility that are required for a medium- or high-throughput screen.
The pharmaceutical industry is now broadly recognizing the benefits of applying hiPSC biology in the drug discovery pipeline, and the use of human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technology is growing. However, implementation of hiPSC-derived disease models in drug discovery projects involves several critical considerations.
The first critical step is to make the right cell type that closely recapitulates the key features of a disease. Secondly, the cells need to be manufactured at a commercial scale. Thirdly, the assay needs to measure the disease biology. And on top, the cell-based assay needs to be reproducible and suitable for high-throughput.
During this webinar we discuss the advantages, challenges and solutions of implementing hiPSC-technology into drug discovery and development - addressing disease modelling, assay development and phenotypic screening.
Presented by
Stefan Braam, PhD,
CEO Ncardia
Stefan Braam is the Co-Founder, CSO and CEO of Ncardia. Earlier in his career, Stefan obtained a Ph.D. in stem cell biology under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Mummery and obtained international experience in labs in the UK and Australia. Stefan won the NGI venture challenge (2009), the Niaba biobusiness Masterclass (2010), published in multiple leading scientific journals, is an inventor on multiple patent families, secured multiple grants and commercial research collaborations.
Elena Matsa, PhD,
Director Discovery Technology
Elena is the Director of Discovery Technology at Ncardia. She obtained her PhD in stem cell biology in 2010, and subsequently worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, and the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has extensive experience and high impact publications in modeling of human cardiac disease in iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes.