In his talk, Steven discussed how advances in human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology enable the study of human disease phenotypes that are challenging to reproduce in animal models. Meaning, human iPSCs provide an attractive option for human disease modeling, drug screening, personalized medicine, cell-based therapy, and toxicity studies.

Specifically, Steven focussed on co-culture models, and how these provide a more physiologically relevant scenario by incorporating donor-matched cell-types or one or more disease lines. Co-culture models facilitate investigation of the individual and combined contribution of each cell type in models incorporating actual human cells differentiated into cell-types akin to those found in vivo. This level of refinement, control and human-relevance is often not possible at scale with existing animal, donor and heterologous cell models.

Watch Steven’s talk to understand:

• The development of co-culture human iPSC disease models
• Co-culture disease models and their relevance in drug screening