Molecular Horizons - Mitchell St Clair-Glover, PhD Exit Seminar

Sensory neurons (SNs) play an essential role in our everyday perception of the surrounding world, providing sensations such as touch, pain, and temperature. Our understanding of the sensory nervous system has historically been limited to animal studies, however growing evidence suggests fundamental physiological discrepancies compared to human. Given the constraints of accessing primary human sensory tissue, a promising alternative lies in the use of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSC) to derive SNs. Our laboratory has recently developed a transgenic cell line with an inducible gene expression cassette for neurogenin-2 (NGN2), a transcription factor that efficiently drives neuronal differentiation. This seminar outlines the characterisation and application of this biological tool for in vitro modelling of the sensory nervous system. Further advancing the utility of hPSC-derived SNs, we developed a three-dimensional (3D) sensory model using 3D bioprinting. Overall, this project provides the basis for sophisticated in vitro studies of the sensory nervous system, with promise for translational applications in disease modelling, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine.