Joseph Jebelli is a Neuroscience PhD Candidate at University College London (UCL). His research involves studying the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

New research suggests that human embryonic stem cells, which are experimentally manipulated to develop into mature neurons to model brain diseases, may in fact more closely represent foetal brain cells than those seen in the ageing brains of disease sufferers.

Over the past 20 years, scientists have been exploring the potential of stem cells to provide therapeutic intervention in a variety of brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, and stroke.

The aims are twofold: 1. to harness them as a cellular transplantation therapy, effectively replacing the cells lost in disease, and 2. to generate particular types of neurons in isolation, and to examine what causes them to die in the brain in the first place. At present, the latter is a more realistic goal. Continue reading →