Lab Overview

Our lab creates in vitro models of human neurodegenerative diseases by converting patients’ skin fibroblasts into disease-affected neural cells. This enables us to screen thousands of drug-like compounds in search of potential therapeutics that slow or stop the degeneration of these cells in petri dishes — and eventually in patients.

  • How to Reprogram Cells … and Why that Matters to Patients
  • Human motor neuron
    Human motor neuron grown from an embryonic stem cell (ESC-MN) in the neuromuscular junction with a chick muscle (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Human chemical induced pluripotent stem cell
    Human chemical induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) colony with NANOG-TRA-1-81 staining (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Human chemical iPSC colony
    Human chemical iPSC colony with NANOG-TRA-1-81-DAPI staining (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Human iPSC-derived neurons
    Human iPSC-derived neurons with TUJ1 staining (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Human induced motor neurons (iMNs)
    Human induced motor neurons (iMNs) (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Mouse chemical iPSC colony
    Mouse chemical iPSC colony with Oct4 marked with green fluorescent protein (GFP) (Image courtesy of the Ichida Lab)
  • Cerebral organoid
    Cerebral organoid derived from ALS patient stem cells (Image by Lisa Nguyen, Yaoming Wang and Angeliki Nikolakopoulou)