Keele scientists developing BrainMix to help researchers studying neural injuries and diseases
A tool created by Keele scientists will help researchers studying brain injuries and neurological disorders by allowing them to grow a brain cell sheet for their studies, without the usual practical and ethical hurdles of such research.
“BrainMix” is a unique concept created by a team from Keele’s Schools of Life Sciences and Medicine, led by neuroscientists Dr Christopher Adams and Professor Divya Maitreyi Chari, which contains a frozen, ready to use kit featuring all of the brain’s major cell types, and crucially the ones which control the brain’s immune response.
The idea is that researchers studying brain injuries or neurological disorders like Spinal Muscular Atrophy can use the kit to create a brain cell sheet that mimics real brain tissue, and use this for developing and testing new therapies and treatments for injuries and neurological conditions.
Therapies like these are urgently needed due to the ageing population, which has seen an increase in neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, but researchers working in these fields are limited by the models which are currently available for testing.
Using live animal models such as mice presents ethical, technical, and financial challenges for researchers. Dish-based models are a cheaper and easier alternative, but these are often too simplistic to properly mimic brain structure and function, especially when studying the brain’s immune response.
BrainMix was created to address these challenges by giving researchers a way to create bespoke brain cell models without the need for time consuming dissections, or other roadblocks commonly resulting from this type of research.
Together with project collaborators, Mr Nikolaos Tzerakis (Consultant Neurosurgeon, University Hospital of North Midlands) and Professor Melissa Bowerman (Professor of Neuromuscular & Skeletal Disorders, School of Medicine, Keele University), the team have now received a grant from the North Staffs Medical Institute (NSMI) to test the product further and show its viability for creating models of brain injury, and spinal muscular atrophy; two medical conditions which have been identified as having urgent need for new therapies.
If successful, the kit could provide a platform technology to be made commercially available for researchers studying all kinds of injuries and disorders to help them progress their research.
Dr Chris Adams, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience at Keele, said: “BrainMix is really exciting for us as it may provide an easy-to-use laboratory brain model which researchers from any background can use for their research. This could speed up the development of different types of neurological therapy from drugs to brain computer interfaces.
“Importantly, researchers will be able to interrogate all the brain cell responses together including immune cells, providing more representative data than currently used models where only one or two cells are included.”
Professor Murray Brunt, Chair of the NSMI, added: “We are delighted to support this research on 'Brain Mix' as it contributes to our mission to improve health outcomes for patients. We will be following this exciting neurological project closely, particularly given the potential to generate a spinout company which could contribute to the local Staffordshire economy, attract investment and support the jobs market.”
