How to develop drugs for neurological diseases
One of the biggest challenges in developing drugs for neurological disorders is that the majority of models available are non-human and just do not work the same way as human brains, therefore when trying to understand the mechanism of action, efficacy, off-target effects and toxicity, these models have significant limitations.
Josh Bagley is the Chief Scientific Officer at a:head bio AG, a spin-out from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, Austria. a:head has developed a brain organoid platform to aid the development of drugs for neurological disorders.
a:head bio uses cerebral organoids, a 3D culture containing human cell types to give an organ-like structure that contains active neural networks. These cultures recreate brain-like tissue in the lab, and allow us to test therapeutics in this tissue outside of the human body. It has been a specific aim to develop a system that can give reproducible and robust assay results and is amenable to automation.
One of the great highlights of a:head’s work has been the ability to observe disease-specific phenotypes and profile clinically used therapeutics for their ability to alter neuronal network activity.
