George Joseph
Institute for Science and Technology in Medicine
Computationally informed surface engineering for in vitro neural
stem cell control
Huntington's & Parkinson's diseases are responsible for movement disorders and
mental issues. This is because cells in a region of the brain are lost. Research aims
to replace these lost cells using cells grown in the laboratory. Currently, there is a
need better control cells cultured in the lab to produce higher numbers of
transplantable cells that can be used for therapeutic strategies. We modified the
chemistry of glass surfaces to grow cells on to measure their responses e.g. number
of cells. In the lab we are limited in changing one surface property per experiment
e.g. charge. Computer programs can detect the effects of many chemical properties
on our cells at once and inform us on which surface properties to tune and by what
degree for future experiments. Programs learn from existing data and we will use
them to predict cell results just by giving it surface chemical information. This
approach will reduce the number of experiments, time, cost and reduces animal use.
Postgraduate Conference 2016
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