Journal of IiMER May 2025 iPSCs are stem cells that can be generated from adult cells and have the ability to become any cell type in the body. Dr Oltra’s research explores how iPSCs can be used as “sensors” to detect disease-specific metabolic imbalances and responses to environmental cues. By exposing healthy iPSCs to plasma or serum from ME/CFS patients, her team studies changes in cell morphology, differentiation, growth, and metabolic activity. These changes can reveal the presence of disease-related factors in patient body fluids and provide evidence of altered cellular metabolism in ME/CFS. This approach offers several advantages over traditional cell lines or primary cell cultures. iPSC-based assays can be standardised, are highly sensitive to metabolic and environmental changes, and allow for high-throughput screening. Dr Oltra’s work also investigates how iPSC systems might predict individual responses to stem cell therapies and support the development of precision medicine strategies for ME/CFS. Her research is important for advancing in vitro disease modelling, identifying potential biomarkers, and developing new diagnostic and drug-screening platforms. In the context of BRMEC14, Dr Oltra’s expertise in iPSC technology provides valuable tools for understanding ME/CFS pathophysiology and for translating laboratory findings into clinical applications. Emily Jones Carding Group, Quadram Institute, UK BRMEC14: Organs-on-Chips Dr Emily Jones is a researcher at the Quadram Institute with expertise in developing organ-on-chip and microphysiological systems to model human tissues and disease processes. She has played a central role in collaborative projects that design and implement organ-on-chip technologies, such as the recently developed gut-brain axis microphysiological system. This platform connects a gut barrier model to a neuronal cell compartment, allowing researchers to study how substances-including neurotoxins-cross the gut lining and affect brain cells. Dr Jones’s work focuses on building simplified, cost-effective, and user-friendly organ-on-chip devices that can be used by a wide range of researchers, including those working in high-containment laboratories. Her research aims to provide more physiologically relevant models than traditional cell culture or animal testing, enabling the study of cell behaviour, inter-organ communication, and disease mechanisms in a controlled environment. By using human-derived cells and creating interconnected models, Dr Jones’s organ-on-chip systems help reveal how diseases develop and progress at the cellular level. This approach is particularly valuable for studying complex, multisystem conditions such as ME/CFS, where traditional models may not capture the intricacies of tissue interactions or immune responses. Her work also supports the identification of new therapeutic targets and the reduction of animal use in research, making organon-chip technology a powerful tool for translational biomedical science. Invest in ME Research Page 31 of 43
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