Autoimmune encephalitis: ItsME Foundation funds Harschnitz Group
07 May 2024
Autoimmune encephalitis: ItsME Foundation funds Harschnitz Group
The Harschnitz Group has been awarded a grant from the ItsME Foundation to develop a human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived brainstem model to understand brainstem encephalitis. The ItsME Foundation was founded in 2019 by Jur Deitmers and has its base in The Netherlands, with the goal to fight Meningitis and Encephalitis.
Autoimmune encephalitis (AIE) is a group of disorders where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy brain cells, causing inflammation. Symptoms range from memory loss to seizures and psychiatric issues.
The study will leverage hPSC technology to create disease-relevant cells of the central nervous system, in particular the brainstem, which are less understood in AIE pathology. This approach, utilising advanced stem cell techniques, promises insights into AIE pathogenesis and potential therapeutic avenues, reducing reliance on animal models.
“Our goal is to develop a novel model of the human brainstem, that can be leveraged to study both the normal development of the brain as well as pathology affecting the brainstem” – Oliver Harschnitz explains – “At HT, we will work closely with the National Facility for Genomics, which will help us to profile at a single-cell resolution the fidelity of our model. This project is important to our goals to further understand the molecular mechanisms underlying pathology of the human brainstem. We will do this using multiple single-cell profiling methods that will help us to dissect the cell-type vulnerability within the brainstem for specific autoantibodies.“
The Glastonbury Group is among the recipients of the Data Insights Cycle 3 awards. The aim of the grant is to develop a machine learning model that identifies disease-relevant cell subpopulations whilst predicting a phenotype/disease of interest from large-scale single-cell RNA-seq data.
In collaboration with an international team of scientists, HT researchers identified a missense mutation in a gene involved in brain-intrinsic immunity as the genetic cause of SARS-CoV-2 brainstem encephalitis.
A study by Human Technopole, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London has shown that in prostate cancer the presence in the same tumour of cells with large differences in shape and genetic composition indicates an increased risk of relapse, including after a decade. The study may help doctors better tailor treatment for this disease, adopting more aggressive therapies in cases where these parameters indicate a higher risk of disease recurrence.
Human Technopole is opening its National Facilities, providing advanced equipment and technologies accessible through calls for proposals open to the Italian scientific community. Projects will be selected by a commission of international experts. Scientists will have access to five new dedicated facilities, which act as catalysts for open innovation in the life sciences sector, crucial for research and the health of Italians.
An international team of scientists led by HT researchers Magda Bienko and Nicola Crosetto developed an open-source software for deconvolution of widefield fluorescence microscopy image stacks and large tissue scans. This new tool increases the information obtained with fluorescence microscopy-based spatial omic methods.
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