EXTRAORDINARY IBMB SEMINAR, Friday, March 8th 10:00 AM | Dr. Sandra Acosta

Date: Friday, March 8th | Fèlix Serratosa room | 08|03|2024

Time: 10:00 AM

Speaker: Dr. Sandra Acosta
Principal Investigator, IDIBELL, UB

Title: “Brain organoid models of developmental epileptic disorders powered up by Deep learning“

Seminar Room: Fèlix Serratosa

Host Researcher: Murielle Saade, Department of Cells and Tissues

Abstract

DS is a severe developmental and epileptic encephalopathy that emerges in infancy and exhibits significant resistance to pharmacological intervention. Despite ongoing efforts to comprehend the mechanistic processes underlying this disorder, regrettably, neither animal models nor cellular models fully replicate the characteristic features of DS. Brain organoids are increasingly recognized as a potent tool for studying neurodevelopment since they partially mimic natural processes occurring in the human brain. However, the in vitro model is constrained by the inherent variability in the differentiation process. In this context, we have developed an AI-based technology capable of discerning, amid this variability, the intrinsic phenotypic differences among cell lines.

BIOSKETCH

As a scientist, I have a long trajectory in the fields of iPSC/ESC-derived brain organoids and genetic and neurodevelopmental disease modeling (see publication selection below). I am Serra-Hunter Assistant Professor at Department of Pathology and Experimental Therapeutics, University of Barcelona (April 2021).  Throughout my career, I tackled questions related to the development of central nervous system implementing in vitro and in vivo models of brain development in health and disease. Briefly, during my PhD, I got the chance to receive an early introduction and work with culture of 3D tumoroids (then called Neutrospheres). Next, I expanded my international profile during two postdoctoral fellowships in the lab of Prof. Pierre Vanderhaeghen in Brussels (2009-2013) and Prof. Oliver at Northwerstern University in Chicago (2014- 2018). Here, I got trained and applied several aspects of cellular and molecular modeling of forebrain development in mammals and published several articles as main author (including in Neuron and Development as first co-author). In 2018, I joined Prof. Jaume Bertranpetit’s lab to expand my knowledge in human evolution and bioinformatics. For this endeavor, I got rewarded with the career development fellowship Beatriu de Pinós. After January 2020, I received 2 grants as an independent principal investigator and I established my lab as a non-tenure track team leader at UPF.

My lab is centered in understanding central questions of human brain development in health and disease. To this purpose, we tackle our questions from a multidisciplinary perspective. This approach leads us to developing several tools, from a genomics and technological AI perspective, and to contribute to the pathogenesis associated to developmental epilepsy, Alzheimer disease, as well as to understand how the human-most brain traits arise evolutionary.