Therapeutic area: CNS, Psychiatric Disorders
Disease: Schizophrenia
Monogenic inroad: DISC1
Cellular Model: Patient derived glutamatergic neurons
Project Origin: ZI Mannheim, Prof. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
Medical need: Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder affecting 20 million people worldwide. Schizophrenia is characterized by distortions in thinking, perception, emotions, language, sense of self and behaviour. Common experiences include hallucinations (hearing voices or seeing things that are not there) and delusions (fixed, false beliefs). Worldwide, schizophrenia is associated with considerable disability and may affect educational and occupational performance. There is a big medical need as currently available medications for Schizophrenia can cause serious side effects which is the major reason why many patients are reluctant to take them.
Goal: The project aims for the development and implementation of a phenotypic approach exploiting a physiologically highly-relevant iPSC-based cellular disease model in assay format, applicable for screening purposes with the opportunity to deliver lead chemical matter and/or identify new molecular targets and biomarkers for the development of personalised treatments of Schizophrenia.
Development stage: The assay is currently validated through a set of therapeutic molecules.
