A review meeting for the European program NG4Leuko

After 3 years of collaboration during which the researchers worked together, ELA International organized a “review meeting” in Paris on Friday March 31^st, 2023. It gathered the 5 teams of researchers from the different European laboratories involved in the project.

The participants, who arrived the day before, had a dinner organized in a typical Parisian brasserie on Thursday, a moment of conviviality that encouraged exchanges. The next day, the participants met for a working day in a studious atmosphere, organized in Paris. The different teams provided an update of the advances of the project, the different stages carried out, the approaches and the different technical resources used by each team.

A review of the project has been made in parallel with the objectives of the project and a schedule of actions still to be carried out was established to continue the work.

Although the project is on fundamental research, ELA gave a clear idea to the researchers on the expectations of families to keep in mind moving towards treatments. Reciprocally, ELA give back to the families the information and advances of the project. European Joint Programme on Rare Diseases

The data collected by the different teams must be compiled and will be published in scientific publications. The program in place for 3 years continues for an additional 6 months and will finish at the end of the year.

 

NG4leuko consortium meeting 10-11 Nov 2022 in Porto

The researchers involved in the NG4leuko consortium organized a face-to-face meeting, hosted by Monica Sousa’s laboratory in Porto, on November 10^th and 11^th, 2022.

Teams’ members presented their progresses and discussed the project’s updates. They shared preliminary observations and the follow up of their work.

Liza Kok from Vivi Heine’s laboratory in Amsterdam, and Elizabeth Mangiameli from Angela Gritti’s lab, in Milan, presented spheroid experiments realized in collaboration by the teams and aiming at exploring neuron-glia interactions in leukodystrophies using human iPSC-based models.

From Monica Sousa’s laboratory in Porto, Sandra Braz described the study of the alterations in the microtubule dynamics, and the alterations in axonal transport and axonal outgrowth of iPSC derived neuronal cells; and Joana Rodrigues summarized the neuronal analysis realized.

Dorien Maas from Maria Cecilia Angulo’s lab in Paris, described the challenges of Optogenetics and DREADD (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs) experiments in the investigation of the role of in vivo neuronal activity in regulating the maturation of human IPS derived oligodendroglia from controls and leukodystrophy patients grafted into mice, and how chemogenetics would be used to address the question.

Finally, Giovanna Cenini from Oliver Brüstle’s lab in Bonn, concluded the update of the young researcher’s progresses, talking about the iAstrocytes.

The meeting also allowed the principal investigators to discuss project progress, follow-up, and finances. A time was reserved for a visit of the laboratory in Porto and for a consortium dinner.