Press Releases

3rd March 2008: Stem Cell-Derived Neurons in Drug DiscoveryNeuronal Stem Cells

Laura Jackson, StemCell Services, won the award for best poster at Screening Europe held in Stockholm 19-20 Feb. The award for the poster entitled “Stem Cell-Derived Neurons in CNS Drug Discovery” was sponsored by ePosters.net – the online Journal of Scientific Posters.

Central Nervous System disorders affect many people worldwide. To increase the quality and number of drugs available for treatments of CNS disorders such as Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and anxiety, the success rate of CNS drug discovery programmes must be improved. The challenge in drug discovery is to develop more relevant assay systems to identify lead compounds for further development. Cell-based screening assays currently used for CNS drug development involve primary cells or commercially available cell lines, both of which have many disadvantages.

Here we have overcome these limitations by generating unlimited supplies of physiologically relevant neurons from human stem cells. These neurons can be successfully manipulated and used in CNS drug discovery programmes to identify lead candidate compounds and limit the need for in vivo experimentation.