Untangling the convergence of disease mechanisms in ALS using personalized iPSC technologies

Evangelos Kiskinis, PhD, is an associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Investigator. Kiskinis earned a PhD from Imperial College London and carried out postdoctoral training at Harvard University, where he pioneered the first models of ALS using personalized stem cell-based approaches. In 2015, his laboratory was established at the Les Turner ALS Center at Northwestern. The Kiskinis Lab seeks to harness the power of pluripotent stem cells to understand how neuronal function is impaired in ALS/FTD patients as well as identify points of targeted and effective therapeutic intervention for ALS/FTD. Kiskinis also serves as the scientific director of the Stem Cell Core Facility at Northwestern.
Talk Description: In this talk, Dr. Kiskinis will describe findings from investigating distinct genetic causes of ALS using iPSC models as well as novel mechanistic interaction between TDP43 dysfunction and neuronal excitability that is relevant for sporadic ALS disease.