New platform for in vitro modeling of neurodegenerative diseases

Find out about the new high throughput assay platform created by Celletricon in the words of their CEO Mattias Karlsson from this interview at SfN Neuroscience 2018 (3–7 November, San Diego, CA, USA).

We have developed a new assay platform for neurodegenerative discovery research, specifically targeting prion-like mechanisms. The platform is based on a new and patent-pending microfluidic system in which we create neuronal circuits using primary or stem cell-derived neurons that can be used for modeling of progressive neuropathologies. Our aim is to use these models for drug screening and we are initially targeting diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

This unique platform enables a massive scale up of experiments that scientists today do on a microscope with an extremely low throughput. This of course offers an increase in productivity and allows for experiments to be run in parallel, so that they can be used for rational drug discovery where you want to screen tens of thousands of compounds. Another benefit is that our platform allows you to do more control experiments and more repeats of your experiments so that you get statistically solid data which of course is a huge advantage.

The main business area of Cellectricon has previously been in the chronic pain field where we have been active for the last 6 years and supported many big pharma companies with our chronic pain research services. We’ve also been active in the field of psychiatry and we have assays for looking at synaptic communication in a high throughput format which are also unique to us.

Our new platform enables us to enter the field of neurodegenerative disease discovery. Our aim is to utilize the collective knowledge and learnings and capabilities that we have established from our work in other disease areas and implement that into our services offering for neurodegeneration. Our main focus for the coming year is to bring this new and exciting technology to the market.