Event
Modelling neurodegenerative changes in adult human organotypic slice cultures
School of Medicine Seminar by Dr Fiona LeBeau, Neural Networks; Co-Director of the Centre for Neuroscience, Newcastle University
Friday 31 July 2026
University of Dundee
Dow Street
Dundee DD1 5HL
Host: Dave Koss
Venue: MSI Small Lecture Theatre, FLS
In this talk I will present our recent work in which we have been using adult human cortical tissue, resected during neurosurgical procedures, to model neurodegeneration. I will focus on our recent data showing spontaneous age-dependent mislocalisation of the nuclear protein TAR DNA binding protein 43 (TDP-43), from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, a key pathological hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and fronto-temoporal dementia. Interestingly this loss of nuclear TDP-43 occurred only in cortical samples from older (>60 years old) patients and not in young (<45 years old) patients. We have conducted several further investigations that show other key disease-relevant changes are also occurring in the slice cultures from older patients. Overall, organotypic human brain slices provide a physiologically relevant platform with which to explore both disease-related mechanisms and assess novel therapeutic agents.
Fiona will have a couple of hours 1-3pm to meet and talk, if you are interested, please let me know ([email protected]).