Extracellular vesicles from epilepsy patient-derived neurons promote epileptogenesis and drug resistance: uncovering new drug targets

Around 70 million people worldwide have epilepsy and more than 30% of patients are drug-resistant. Drug resistance is currently an unmet need due to the lack of pathological understanding because of the limited availability of brain tissue and the absence of disease models with human-specific receptors to develop new drugs. Human stem cell models are ideal to cover these limitations. Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) are nano-sized membrane vesicles, including exosomes and microvesicles, secreted by cells into the extracellular environment. The EVs are involved in cell-cell communication and have roles in the central nervous system (CNS). In this project, we will utilise the EVs to investigate the drug resistance and pathognic mechanisms of epilepsy using pateints' stem cell derived neurons. This project will require the techniques of stem cell-based in vitro cell culture, immunohistochemistry and gene expression analysis using real time PCR.