CMCB Life Sciences Seminar: Dr. Mina Gouti, Max-Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin

Host: Konstantinos Anastassiadis (BIOTEC)

Title: “Building advanced neuromuscular organoids to study human development and disease“

Mina Gouti is a group leader at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin. She works at the interface of developmental biology, stem cell research and organoid technologies. Her lab has pioneered the generation of 3D human neuromuscular organoids (NMOs) from human pluripotent stem cell-derived neuromesodermal progenitor cells (Martins et al, Cell Stem Cell, 2020). The generation of human neuromuscular organoids opened up new opportunities for studying and treating neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases. Mina Gouti is an EMBO young investigator and has received several distinctions and awards, including an ERC Consolidator Grant and an ERC Proof of Concept grant.

Abstract: Locomotion results from the interaction between muscles and the nervous system. Dysfunction of such cells results in deadly diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Neuromuscular diseases often show regional selectivity but the underlying reasons remain obscure due to the lack of a suitable human model system. We have recently used human pluripotent stem cell derived axial stem cells, the building blocks of the posterior body, to simultaneously generate spinal cord neurons and skeletal muscle cells that self-organize in 3D to generate neuromuscular organoids (NMOs). NMOs contain functional neuromuscular junctions supported by terminal Schwann cells. They contract and develop central pattern generator-like neuronal circuits. We are currently applying NMOs to study the early development of the human neuromuscular system and to model neuromuscular diseases. This approach promises to uncover the sequence of events and provide greater insight into the mechanisms that lead to specific diseases by tackling previously inaccessible features of neuromuscular junction biology.