Institute for Computational Cancer Biology

Helena will talk about Joint profiling of cell morphology and gene expression in neuronal disease models

Abstract

Differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) towards neuronal lineages has enabled diverse cellular models of human neurodevelopment and related disorders. While mutations in genes encoding for epigenetic regulators are an established cause for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), their exact molecular mechanisms remain unknown and there is a need for systematic phenotyping of in vitro neurons at scale. We have used Cell Painting, a high-content imaging assay, jointly with transcriptomic profiling in single cells to characterize the biological heterogeneity in developing cortical neurons. We observed that image-based morphological phenotypes enhanced our ability to quantify the biological processes that determine neuronal differentiation outcomes over time and allowed us to identify disease-relevant phenotypes.

About the speaker

Helena Kilpinen is  a tenure-track associate professor in human genetics and genomic medicine at Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) at the University of Helsinki (UH) in Finland and the Faculty of Medicine, and a group leader at FIMM and the Neuroscience Center. Her lab investigates the cellular genetics and the cellular basis of developmental and other brain-related disorders using human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) as models, and combine computational and experimental methods. 

Contact: Laura Godfrey (+49 221 478 51455, laura.godfrey@iccb-­cologne.org), Stefanie Fleer (+49 221 478 15104, stefanie.fleer@iccb­-cologne.org)