ZonMw TOP grant for Brain on a Dish research

4 April 2018

Nael Nadif Kasri and Hans van Bokhoven have been rewarded with a prestigious ZonMw TOP grant (€ 675,000) for their project “Brain on a dish: development of innovative stem cell technologies for personalized medicine in epilepsy”.

The project will focus on Dravet syndrome, a severe epileptic encephalopathy, for which the prescription of medication is typically following a path of trial and error that can lead to severe side effects and reduction of the quality of life for the patient. The aim of this project is to develop an in vitro protocol to predict the efficacy of anti-epileptic drugs before prescription to the patient. This new strategy two innovative methodologies that have been established in the group of Nadif Kasri and van Bokhoven:  the use of patient-derived neural lineages obtained by stem cell technologies and the analysis of neural network properties of these cells using smart dishes (micro-electrode arrays). Neural networks generated from patient-derived neurons show exaggerated and uncontrolled network properties, which they will attempt to normalize by the use of anti-epileptic drugs. In a retrospective study, the optimal conditions will be established,  using drugs with known efficacy in the patient from whom the neurons are derived. In the last phase of the project a prospective study will be conducted to generate proof-of-concept for implementation of the Brain on a dish strategy in clinical practice.
This project is conducted in close collaboration with Neurologists from Academic Center Epilepsy Kempenhaeghe (Judith Verhoeven en Jurgen Schelhaas) and Maastricht UMC (Marian Majoie en Joost Nicolai).