3D Bioprinting Lab awarded seed grant to advance Alzheimer’s disease modeling through brain assembloids
3D Bioprinting Lab awarded seed grant to advance Alzheimer’s disease modeling through brain assembloids
Mohammad Fazle Alam, PhD, a research scientist at the 3D Bioprinting Laboratory within the UICOMR Department of Biomedical Sciences, has received a $25,000 seed grant from the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science. This funding will support a collaborative research project between Dr. Alam, and Dr. Xue-Jun Li, the Michael A. Werckle Professor of Biomedical Sciences and co-director of the Regenerative Medicine and Disabilities Laboratory.
The purpose of this project is to bioprint brain assembloids to model Alzheimer’s disease. Assembloids are models made with living cells that have the structural and functional properties of an organ. This interdisciplinary initiative aims to develop advanced 3D brain assembloids that accurately replicate the structure and function of the human brain.
By utilizing state-of-the-art bioprinting and stem cell technologies, the research team will create tissue constructs that include vasculature and various cell types, providing a more relevant model for studying neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease.
Current Alzheimer’s disease models often fail to capture the intricacies of human brain tissue. This project aims to overcome these limitations by combining bioengineering, neuroscience, and stem cell technologies to replicate key aspects of the disease, including amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles.