"Engineering human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as a means to replace animal models for investigating the contribution of the ApoE risk allele to onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease."

Nicholas Brookhauser, a Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University, has received IFER funding from 2017-2020 for his project, “Engineering human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as a means to replace animal models for investigating the contribution of the ApoE risk allele to onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.” Nicholas will be developing a human-relevant, cell-based model to better understand how ApoE, a risk factor associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), contributes to disease onset and progression. Depending on the versions of the ApoE gene an individual has, their risk for Alzheimer’s varies. Nick will be generating human induced pluripotent stem cells that vary only by their ApoE genotype, with no other changes to their genetic background. He will differentiate the cells to establish 3D cultures and will look at the influence of the ApoE variants on different traits associated with Alzheimer’s disease