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Read about the latest updates happening at the EDDU
Sign up for our newsletter and general news, here.

The LORIS iPSC Catalogue is now available open access for anyone interested in our cell lines!

Access the website here:

https://cbigr-open.loris.ca

How to access the catalogue: 

  • Click “Open data access” as login

  • Select at the top-left “Open data” tab

  • Click “iPSC catalogue”

Loris portal
navigator portal

Check out our page on the Research Facilities Navigator, showcasing the EDDU's expertises as well as our collaborations with academia, industry, and the government.

Astrocytes

Image of astrocytes 

by Valerio Piscopo

Read the EDDU's quarterly newsletter to learn more about the latest events and achievements happening at the EDDU!

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Click here to read the Summer 2024 newsletter.

Le Devoir has written an article on the EDDU, speaking on how Quebec research institutes partner with private industry to further research, such as the collaboration the EDDU has with the Montreal biotech company eNUVIO. 

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le devoir magazine
enuvio
healthy lifes healthy brain
bioreactor

February 2024

Healthy Brains Healthy Lives has written a research spotlight article on the EDDU's organoid work!

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Brains on a Dish: Revolutionizing Parkinson’s Disease research with brain organoids 

Dopaminergic neurons

Image of cortical neurons 

by Cecilia Rocha

Read the EDDU's quarterly newsletter to learn more about the latest events and achievements happening at the EDDU!

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Click here to read the Spring 2024 newsletter.

pipeting

The EDDU has joined the G-CAN initiative! Thanks in part to funding from the Weston foundation and Van Berkom foundation, EDDU researchers are now helping to generate new mutant GBA iPSCs and developing new assays and therapeutics towards targeting GBA in Parkinson’s.

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To learn more, please visit: https://www.mcgill.ca/neuro/article/research/neurodegenerative-gene-focus-new-open-science-project

December 2023

The EDDU wrapped up a science-packed 2023 participating in the ALS/MND symposium in Basel, Swizterland! Congratulations to Mathilde, Vince, Sarah, Maria and Anna, for their poster presentations. The posters presented can be seen under Posters in Publications. 

MNDA congress
Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms Meeting

November 2023

We were pleased to participate in the Canadian Network of Scientific Platforms Meeting! It was a great opportunity to present and discuss our work. Congratulations to Taylor Goldsmith, Wolfgang Reintsch, Andrea Krahn and Julien Sirois for their poster presentations, in collaboration with Nicolas Ferry, from the Clinical Biological Imaging and Genetic Repository (C-BIG Repository - Biobank). And a special congratulations to Andrea and Wolfgang for winning a best poster prize. 

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Atrocytes image

Image of Astrocytes
By Vincent Soubannier

Read the EDDU's monthly newsletter to learn more about the latest events and achievements happening at the EDDU!

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Click here to read the October 2023 newsletter.

Image that represents the paper: MerTK is a mediator of alpha-synuclein fibril uptake by human microglia

September 2023

We are very happy to share that Marie-France Dorion's paper entitled "MerTK is a mediator of alpha-synuclein fibril uptake by human microglia" has just been published in Brain.

Congratulations to everyone involved in this paper!

Click on the link to access the publication: https://lnkd.in/eakD96E3

September 2023

Watch the EDDU's latest video "Open Science with Guada and Maria" to discover how the lab builds collaborations around the world to advance research on stem cells and brain disorders.

Cover of Open Science with Guada and Maria video

Meet Guada, a PhD student at Dr. Nicolas Unsain's lab, in Argentina, who worked with our lab's PhD student Maria, on characterizing membrane-associated periodic skeleton (MPS) in different iPSC-derived cells.

 

 Click the following link for the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSLUH9W_obk 

August 2023

The Neuro’s EDDU is pleased to share our updated protocol for generating dopaminergic neurons from iPSCs through the use of a Microfabricated Disk. 

Image of DOPA Protocol

You can access the protocol here: https://zenodo.org/record/8256637 

Image of an iPSC-derived microglia

Image of an iPSC-derived microglia 

by Marie-France Dorion

Read the EDDU's monthly newsletter to learn more about the latest events and achievements happening at the EDDU!

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Click here to read the August 2023 newsletter.

The Neuro-CERVO Alliance for Drug Discovery (NCADD) is pleased to share its partnership with AI company Simmunome to better understand mechanisms of neurological disease and accelerate drug development. The Neuro’s EDDU joined the newly established NCADD initiative in April, and since then have worked collectively towards the initiative’s goal of catalyzing public-private collaborations in Quebec’s life sciences sector.

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To this effect, NCADD’s partnership with Montreal-based private company Simmunome will employ their AI expertise to untangle biological pathways and biomarkers of neurological and psychiatric disorders, working towards potential therapeutic targets for these devastating conditions.

Simmunome Inc logo
Neuro Cervo logo
Carol Chen photo

The Neuro’s EDDU is proud to share that Carol Chen, Research Assistant at the Early Drug Discovery Unit, has been awarded the 2023 Champion Award for Research Staff, alongside Claire Magnussen, Nikhil Bhagwat, and Samir Das. This award is a part of The Neuro Open Science Internal Awards, supported by Tanenbaum Open Science Institute to recognize researchers, staff, graduate and undergraduate students at The Neuro who have shown leadership and creativity in Open Science, inspiring peers and fostering a community of Open Science practice. Congratulations to all the awardees on this well deserved recognition of your work and commitment to Open Science!  

The Neuro’s EDDU is proud to share that Thomas

Durcan, the Director of the EDDU, is co-principal

investigator of the new testing platform TRIDENT. In

a partnership between McGill University and

Western University, TRIDENT strives to identify

promising therapeutics against neurodegenerative

diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s earlier,

redirecting efforts and funding to the most promising

therapeutics. The New Frontiers in Research Fund’s

transformation stream has granted TRIDENT $24

million over six years.

Through advanced testing models, and a unique

focus on cognition, the platform will help bring drugs

with the most therapeutic potential to market and

assist researchers to assess whether these drugs

deliver the health outcomes anticipated.

 

Thomas Durcan photo
gut organoid

Image of an iPSC-derived gut organoid

by Faïza Benaliouad

Read the EDDU's monthly newsletter to learn more about the latest events and achievements happening at the EDDU!

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Click here to read the May 2023 newsletter.

The Neuro’s EDDU is proud to be part of the Neuro-CERVO Alliance for Drug Discovery in Brain Diseases (NCADD) initiative. NCADD’s vision is to embrace patients’ heterogeneity to develop effective treatment to neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Through a unique unbiased scientific approach, combining deep patients’ characterization and artificial intelligence, our mission is to address major challenges in the neuroscience field such as finding biomarkers for neurological disorders, enabling drug target discovery, and facilitating the development of personalized therapies. NCADD’s core objective is to be a catalyst for public-private collaborations and for growth of the life science sector in Quebec.

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To learn more, go to: https://www.neuro-cervo.org/ â€‹

Biological and Clinical Data workflow
iPSC workshop poster

We are happy to announce our next virtual iPSC workshop which will take place on June 21st and 22nd. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about working with human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) and how they can be differentiated into neuronal cell types.

The application deadline is June 2nd.

 

To register for the workshop, go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LDJ59Z8.

 

Please note that the completion of the on-demand neural induction course is a prerequisite to attending this course if accepted. The link to register for this course is https://www.stemcell.com/forms/neural-induction-on-demand-training.html

The EDDU is on Instagram! Check out our latest posts below.

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EDDU Video Spotlight

Publication Updates

Image that represents the paper: Loss of C9orf72 perturbs the Ran-GTPase gradient and generates compositionally diverse cytoplasmic Importin β-1 granules in motor and cortical neurons in vivo

Loss of C9orf72 perturbs the Ran-GTPase gradient and generates compositionally diverse cytoplasmic Importin β-1 granules in motor and cortical neurons in vivo

February 2023

Philip McGoldrick et al.

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DOI: 10.1101/2021.10.20.465148

Image that represents the paper: An Optimized Workflow to Generate and Characterize iPSC-Derived Motor Neuron (MN) Spheroids

An Optimized Workflow to Generate and Characterize iPSC-Derived Motor Neuron (MN) Spheroids

February 2023

Maria Jose Castellanos-Montiel et al.

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DOI: 10.3390/cells12040545

Image that represents the paper: Systematic comparison of culture media uncovers phenotypic shift of primary human microglia defined by reduced reliance to CSF1R signaling

Systematic comparison of culture media uncovers phenotypic shift of primary human microglia defined by reduced reliance to CSF1R signaling

January 2023

Marie-France Dorion et al.

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DOI: 10.1002/glia.24338

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