Why and How Do We Study Keratinocytes?
In a previous article we introduced keratinocytes and looked at their biological functions and subtypes. Here, we explore some of the main reasons researchers study keratinocytes and the various...
Chips and Beyond: The Attraction of 3D Organoid Models in Drug Discovery
A critical prerequisite for any drug discovery program is the availability of robust ways to study the disease in question and evaluate how experimental treatments impact disease phenotypes. Disease...
iPSC Culture: What Every Researcher Needs to Know
Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) have become a mainstay in disease modeling and drug development, offering almost unlimited opportunities to study human biology in the lab. However, working...
The Forgotten Process – Trogocytosis!
Trogocytosis, from trogo meaning ‘to gnaw’ or ‘to nibble’ in Ancient Greek, is an active process during which one cell receives cell surface molecules and membrane fragments from another cell in a...
Blood Brain Barrier and Inflammatory Cell Types in the Human CNS
In our last article, we introduced mast cells, their origins and morphology, and summarized how they are activated during IgE-mediated allergic responses. Here, we shift gears and explore how mast...
Culturing and Characterising Organoids – What Do We Need to Know?
Organoids are cell-derived, 3D in vitro models that are cultured to recapitulate structural and functional aspects of the in vivo tissue they are intended to represent. Organoids are not new to...
The Promises and Problems with ADCs
Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) are targeted cancer therapies that combine the specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the potency of cytotoxic drugs. In contrast to conventional chemotherapies,...
Better Blood Brain Barrier Models Are Urgently Needed for Modern Therapeutic Advances
Welcome to Part 4 of our series about the blood brain barrier (BBB)! Here, we highlight the rising global burden of neurological disorders, and recap on the challenges surrounding drug safety and...
Sources of cells for modeling the human BBB — 4 considerations
Welcome to Part 3 of our blog series covering the blood brain barrier (BBB). In Part 1, we looked briefly at how the BBB was discovered and presented what we currently know about its composition and...