Immunological Disorders and Immunotherapy
Open Access

Abstract

An Integrative approach to study mental illness through the resources of patient ???specific Human Induced pluripotent stem cells(HiPSCs)

Geetha M. Swamilingiah

Abstract:
The translational research opportunities of stem cell research and regenerative medicines involves sharing of ideas and working at an academic (basic research) and clinical researches as well as industry representatives, at an interdisciplinary level. It involves a whole lot on an international platform to learn about the innovative technologies and strategies being implemented to assess the role of induced pluripotent stem cells and embryonic stem cells in cell therapy and translational medicine. Stem cells provide an attractive, physiologically suitable cellular system for disease modeling and have the potential to play an important role in drug discovery and cell therapies. In my talk, I would like to share interdisplinary strategies that are being employed to assess the role of induced pluripotent stem cells especially in  area of mental illnesses include well-recognized conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, addiction and dementia in our translational research program called “The Accelerator program for Discovery in Brain disorders using Stem cells” (ADBS) which is a scientific venture to understand mental illness by harnessing the power of sophisticated clinical investigations, modern human genetics, and stem cell technology.

Biography:
Geetha has been in the life sciences field for over more than 17 years    spanning from R & D, Commercialization of products, technology transfers, International Collaborations and Business Strategy. She is currently working as Team leader and Biorepository manager for ADBS Program at National Centre for Biological Sciences(NCBS) TIFR, Bangalore. Prior to that she was worked at different product based companies like Invitrogen, Life technolgies and Thermofisher Scientific.  Geetha also had a Europe Union stint as an Biotech Sector Specialist at European Business and Technology Center (EBTC) an EU program managed by EUCH, Brussels where her focus was on building research and business collaboration between European countries and India. Her area of specialization includes Stem cells viz., neuronal differentiation and high throughput molecular biology works. She has commercialized two products in the field of stem cell and has several research articles published to her credits. She earned her Ph.D from Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology at Bangalore University, Bangalore. She pursued her Post-doctoral Research at National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore in the field of molecular neurobiology. Besides scientific career, she also loves traveling, she loves people and different cultures,photography and listening to wide varieties of music across the world.
 

Published Date: 2020-10-26;