The Stem Cell and Organoid Facility at Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI) was awarded the renowned 2021 Ian Potter Foundation Grant, allowing it to purchase state-of-the-art technology to better explore diseases that impact the brain and eye.

The Foundation has awarded CMRI $100,000 which has been matched by CMRI and an anonymous benefactor, the result of the powerful combination of collaborative Australian philanthropy and research excellence to fund a high-throughput Multi Electrode Array (MEA) for functional genomics.

The aim of the project is to accelerate precision medicine in Australia. The MEA is able to perform analyse the functionality of live, mature mini organs derived from stem cells, named organoids.

Head of the CMRI’s Stem Cell and Organoid Facility, Dr Anai Gonzalez Cordero, said this would allow unprecedented comparison of healthy and diseased organoids to be able to complete mapping of brain and eye disease and development.

Dr Gonzalez Cordero said. “This will create a platform for testing cell therapies, gene therapies and drug screening and enable mapping of healthy and diseased human retinal and brain development.’’

Some of the diseases they will be studying include retinal eyes disease such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Macular Degenerations including Ushers and Stargardt’s Disease and as well as neurological diseases such as early developmental epilepsies and Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s as well as heart and muscular diseases.

The new equipment will be used by multiple lab groups at the Westmead Hub as well as international collaborators. such as biotechnology company Alia Therapeutics and DEVELOPNOID which is a European research consortium supported by the Lundbeck Foundation. 

“The collaboration resulting from this equipment will initiate new multidisciplinary projects, allowing currently unfeasible projects to become achievable and accelerating projects towards clinical outcomes.’’