SANTANDER TOTTA / NOVA University of Lisbon AWARD distinguishes project in the area of Alzheimer’s disease
March 25, 2015
Cláudia Almeida, researcher at CEDOC coordinates the winning project. This project counts with the collaboration of Catarina Brito from the Animal Cell Technology Unit of iBET and aims to develop an experimental 3D cellular model of the disease that can be used to study the disease induction mechanism and also for future testing of novel personalized therapeutic strategies.
Catarina Brito, researcher at the Animal Cell Technology Unit of iBET and ITQB-UNL, conducts her research in the area of new cellular models of disease, including models of the human central nervous system derived from stem cells. The team has been developing three-dimensional cellular models (3D) in order to recapitulate in the lab characteristics of neural tissue in terms of structure and function and tissue environment. In this project, researchers will apply these strategies to stem cells previously modified by genetic factors to recapitulate Alzheimer’s disease (Laboratory of Claudia Almeida). The hypothesis is that by generating 3D models using these cells, researchers will be able to enhance the appearance and accumulation of the cellular changes triggered by these genetic factors, allowing for the first time the recreation in a laboratory environment of the pathological aspects present in neural tissue of Alzheimer's patients.