Improving physiological relevance in neurological disease drug development | How Concept Life Sciences is building more reliable, consistent in vitro assays using ioMicroglia

In this case study, hear from Elise Malavasi, Ph.D., a Principal Scientist at leading contract research organisation Concept Life Sciences, where she specialises in the development and use of in-vitro assays for neurobiological research. Of particular interest to Elise is the development of functional assays for microglia, a cell type that is increasingly viewed as a therapeutic target in neurodegenerative disease. The interview highlights their need to develop assays that are amenable to long term use to support their clients with drug development, and how bit.bio’s male donor-derived ioMicroglia has helped them develop assays with increased physiological relevance and consistency towards this goal.

Until now, such consistency has been challenging to develop with primary cell lines, and from human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) derived cells generated using directed differentiation. They’ve found bit.bio’s ioMicroglia to be highly functional and, critically, to be consistent lot to lot. Elise’s team is now exploring the use of ioMicroglia in more complex model systems. This work opens the door for Concept Life Sciences to offer more human-relevant models to their clients and better support CNS-targeted drug development.

In this case study you will learn:

• How Concept Life Sciences seek to develop assays proving drug candidate efficacy on human iPSC-derived microglia
• How ioMicroglia offered Concept Life Sciences functional cells with low inter-lot variability, ensuring consistent assay performance, facilitating large scale screening studies. 
• How Concept Life Science’s initial challenges integrating this new cell type into their workflows were overcome by support from the bit.bio team, ensuring they could easily develop assays using these cells.