Genetics, Stem Cells, & Brain Diseases - The Brennand Lab at Yale School of Medicine

Transcript

• 00:05The biggest mystery of biology
• 00:07is the brain. Who we
• 00:08are, what shapes it, what
• 00:10is the interaction
• 00:12between nature and nurture. In
• 00:14the lab we call that
• 00:15genetics and environment.
• 00:20My lab is really interested
• 00:22in the genetic predisposition
• 00:24and progression into brain disease,
• 00:26from anxiety
• 00:27to depression,
• 00:29from autism to addiction.
• 00:31This is the question in
• 00:32the lab, how do we
• 00:33connect genetic risk to
• 00:35cellular changes to disease outcome?
• 00:41And we do that with
• 00:42our stem cell models. So
• 00:43we can make stem cells
• 00:44from people with autism or
• 00:47Alzheimer's,
• 00:48with schizophrenia
• 00:49or Parkinson's,
• 00:51and turn those stem cells
• 00:52into all of the major
• 00:53cell types of the brain.
• 00:54But then along the way,
• 00:56we can add or remove
• 00:57genetic risk.
• 00:59We can add risk to
• 01:00controls,
• 01:01remove it from particular patients,
• 01:03and ask how that changes
• 01:04the way the cell types
• 01:06linked to disease are functioning.
• 01:08And if we can understand
• 01:09that, can we put it
• 01:10in a pill?
• 01:11Can we bottle up that
• 01:12pathway and activate it or
• 01:14repress it? How do we
• 01:15help ensure
• 01:16that all of us can
• 01:18have our best phenotypic or
• 01:19clinical outcome independent of the
• 01:21risk that we were born
• 01:22with?
• 01:28I think we all understand
• 01:30today that there's not going
• 01:31to be one cure for
• 01:32cancer,
• 01:33that there's going to be
• 01:34dozens or hundreds of treatments
• 01:36for cancer dependent on the
• 01:38the genes and the mutations
• 01:39driving it in each person.
• 01:41What we're coming to understand
• 01:42is that the same is
• 01:43going to be true in
• 01:44psychiatric disorders and neurodegeneration.
• 01:46There's not going to be
• 01:47one cure for autism or
• 01:49one cure for Alzheimer's. There's
• 01:50going to be hundreds of
• 01:52treatments depending on the genetics
• 01:53that you were born with.
• 01:55And so I'm really interested
• 01:56in understanding the complex genetics
• 01:59of psychiatric disorders and neurodegenerative
• 02:01diseases
• 02:02towards understanding how many slices
• 02:04there are to each of
• 02:05these conditions, and to begin
• 02:07to find targeted interventions to
• 02:09help one patient at a
• 02:10time.