Publications by authors named "Anna Falk"

In 2020, a case report described autologous transplantation of iPSC-derived dopamine (DA) neurons in a Parkinson's disease (PD) patient. The team now follows up with the pre-clinical safety and efficacy data of autologous iPSC-derived DA neurons, forming the basis for regulatory approval of a phase 1 clinical trial involving 8 patients..

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Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have significant potential for disease modeling and cell therapies. However, their wide-spread application has faced challenges, including batch-to-batch variabilities, and notable distinctions when compared to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Some of these disparities can stem from using undefined culture conditions and the reprogramming procedure, however, the precise mechanisms remain understudied.

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a set of heterogeneous neurodevelopmental conditions, with a highly diverse genetic hereditary component, including altered neuronal circuits, that has an impact on communication skills and behaviours of the affected individuals. Beside the recognised role of neuronal alterations, perturbations of microglia and the associated neuroinflammatory processes have emerged as credible contributors to aetiology and physiopathology of ASD. Mutations in NRXN1, a member of the neurexin family of cell-surface receptors that bind neuroligin, have been associated to ASD.

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Objectives: Delirium is a common post-cardiac surgery complication that presents as acute changes in mental abilities with confused thinking and a lack of awareness of the surroundings. Delirium symptoms present in hyperactive- and hypoactive forms. Hypoactive delirium is often overlooked.

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Article Synopsis
  • Medulloblastoma (MB) is a common and aggressive brain tumor in children, and existing treatments improve survival but often cause significant side effects, highlighting the need for better targeted therapies.
  • Researchers conducted a high-throughput screening of 172 known compounds using a specific MB model to find drugs that could effectively target tumor cells while sparing healthy brain cells.
  • The study identified PF4708671, an S6K1 inhibitor, as a promising candidate that selectively targets SHH-driven MB cells without harming normal neural stem cells, making it a potential new therapy for treating this type of cancer.
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Preclinical transplantations using human neuroepithelial stem (NES) cells in spinal cord injury models have exhibited promising results and demonstrated cell integration and functional improvement in transplanted animals. Previous studies have relied on the generation of research grade cell lines in continuous culture. Using fresh cells presents logistic hurdles for clinical transition regarding time and resources for maintaining high quality standards.

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The clinical translation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) holds great potential for personalized therapeutics. However, one of the main obstacles is that the current workflow to generate iPSCs is expensive, time-consuming, and requires standardization. A simplified and cost-effective microfluidic approach is presented for reprogramming fibroblasts into iPSCs and their subsequent differentiation into neural stem cells (NSCs).

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Objectives: Depression has been associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to determine whether self-reported preoperative depressive symptoms were associated with worse long-term survival in patients undergoing cardiac surgery.

Methods: This population-based, observational cohort study included patients who had undergone cardiac surgery at Karolinska University Hospital between 2013 and 2016.

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COVID-19 patients often display dysfunctions of the nervous system, indicating an effect of SARS-CoV-2 on neural cells. Yang et al. now show that human stem-cell-derived dopaminergic neurons are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, triggering inflammation and senescence.

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Article Synopsis
  • Genetic changes affecting a protein called HNRNPU are found in several brain disorders in kids.
  • HNRNPU is important for the brain's growth, especially in the part called the cerebellum, but we don’t know how it affects this area yet.
  • Researchers found that when HNRNPU is missing, it changes how brain cells develop, which might connect to issues like epilepsy, autism, and learning challenges.
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Objectives: Postoperative delirium affects up to 50% of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Delirium phenotypes are commonly divided into hyperactive and hypoactive, with hypoactive symptoms (reduced motor activity and withdrawal) often being overlooked due to their discreet character. Although the consequences of hypoactive delirium are severe, studies focusing on patients' experiences of hypoactive delirium are scarce.

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  • Research reveals genetic and environmental factors are linked to diseases, highlighting the need for better screening methods to study molecular outcomes.
  • This study uses a fractional factorial experimental design (FFED) to explore six environmental factors and their effects on human neural progenitors in relation to autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
  • Key findings include significant changes in gene pathways related to synaptic function and lipid metabolism, particularly after exposure to lead and fluoxetine, suggesting FFED can effectively analyze the impact of environmental risks on human neural development.
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We have developed an efficient approach to generate functional induced dopaminergic (DA) neurons from adult human dermal fibroblasts. When performing DA neuronal conversion of patient fibroblasts with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD), we could specifically detect disease-relevant pathology in these cells. We show that the patient-derived neurons maintain age-related properties of the donor and exhibit lower basal chaperone-mediated autophagy compared with healthy donors.

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Balanced structural variants, such as reciprocal translocations, are sometimes hard to detect with sequencing, especially when the breakpoints are located in repetitive or insufficiently mapped regions of the genome. In such cases, long-range information is required to resolve the rearrangement, identify disrupted genes and, in symptomatic carriers, pinpoint the disease-causing mechanisms. Here, we report an individual with autism, epilepsy and osteoporosis and a de novo balanced reciprocal translocation: t(17;19) (p13;p11).

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Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS; MIM# 176270) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the loss of expression of paternally imprinted genes within the PWS region located on 15q11.2. It is usually caused by either maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 15 (UPD15) or 15q11.

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Objectives: Depression is common in patients with cardiac disease, and preoperative depression is associated with worse outcomes after cardiac surgery. Depression is also correlated with postoperative delirium (POD) after major surgery. However, the association between preoperative depression and POD after cardiac surgery is sparsely studied.

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Glyphosate-based herbicides (GBH) are among the most sold pesticides in the world. There are several formulations based on the active ingredient glyphosate (GLY) used along with other chemicals to improve the absorption and penetration in plants. The final composition of commercial GBH may modify GLY toxicological profile, potentially enhancing its neurotoxic properties.

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Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from patients are an attractive disease model to study tissues with poor accessibility such as the brain. Using this approach, we and others have shown that trisomy 21 results in genome-wide transcriptional dysregulations. The effects of loss of genes on chromosome 21 is much less characterized.

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Article Synopsis
  • Post-traumatic syringomyelia (PTS) leads to worsening neurological issues in chronic spinal cord injury patients, and researchers are exploring the use of neuroepithelial-like stem cells (NESCs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to improve treatment.
  • In a rat model, it was found that off-the-shelf NESCs significantly reduced cyst volume and stimulated tissue repair when implanted 10 weeks after injury, showing promising results for neural recovery.
  • The study suggests that NESCs could complement standard surgical treatments for PTS, potentially enhancing long-term neurological outcomes for affected patients.
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Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) are characterized by brain accumulation of aggregated amyloid-beta (Aβ) and alpha-synuclein (αSYN), respectively. In order to develop effective therapies, it is crucial to understand how the Aβ/αSYN aggregates can be cleared. Compelling data indicate that neuroinflammatory cells, including astrocytes and microglia, play a central role in the pathogenesis of AD and PD.

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Here, we present a revised protocol to derive neuroepithelial stem (NES) cells from human induced pluripotent stem cells. NES cells can be further differentiated into a culture of neurons (90%) and glia (10%). We describe how to derive and maintain NES cells in culture and how to differentiate them.

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Objectives: Depression is common in patients with cardiac disease. The importance of preoperative depression for development of postoperative delirium (POD) following cardiac surgery is not well known. The aim is to provide a summary estimate of depression as a predictor of POD following cardiac surgery.

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Posttraumatic syringomyelia (PTS) is a serious condition of progressive expansion of spinal cord cysts, affecting patients with spinal cord injury years after injury. To evaluate neural cell therapy to prevent cyst expansion and potentially replace lost neurons, we developed a rat model of PTS. We combined contusive trauma with subarachnoid injections of blood, causing tethering of the spinal cord to the surrounding vertebrae, resulting in chronically expanding cysts.

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RNA viruses have gained plenty of attention during recent outbreaks of Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), Zika virus (ZIKV), and Ebola virus. ZIKV is a vector borne Flavivirus that is spread by mosquitoes and it mainly infects neuronal progenitor cells. One hallmark of congenital ZIKV disease is a reduced brain size in fetuses, leading to severe neurological defects.

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