The AIT congratulates Nikoletta Kardos-Török and Adrian Klepe from the Biological Barriers Group of the Competence Unit Molecular Diagnostics of the AIT Center for Health and Bioresources. The young scientists were honoured with a total of three prizes for their research work on the blood-brain barrier.
The blood-brain barrier is an essential barrier between the bloodstream and the brain. It protects the central nervous system from harmful substances, but at the same time poses a challenge for the treatment of neurological diseases, as many therapeutic agents are unable to cross this barrier.
Research on extracellular vesicles and cell models
At the Joint Annual Meeting of ASEV and CzeSEV 2024, Adrian Klepe received the prize for the best poster entitled ‘Small EV uptake and release in a human in vitro blood-brain barrier co-culture model under ischemic conditions’. His work focussed on extracellular vesicles (EVs), small nanoparticles released by cells that serve as a means of communication between cells and tissues. Klepe investigated how the uptake and release of these vesicles is altered under stroke conditions in a complex cell culture model of the blood-brain barrier. These findings could provide important impulses for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.
In addition, both Adrian Klepe and Nikoletta Kardos-Török were honoured with a Young Scientist Travel Award (YSTA) for the EUSAAT Congress 2024 by a seven-member expert jury from among 60 submissions. In his lecture ‘Challenges and insights of investigating small extracellular vesicle internalisation and permeation across the blood-brain barrier in vitro’, Klepe presented the challenges and new findings in the investigation of EVs. Nikoletta Kardos-Török presented her poster ‘Translation of an established in vitro blood-brain barrier differentiation protocol to CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited, patient-derived hiPSC lines: Highlighting challenges’. She addressed the technical challenges of producing blood-brain barrier cells from patient-specific stem cells that have been genetically modified using CRISPR/Cas9. Her focus was on cells from patients with Syngap1 disorder, a disease that leads to significant impairments in brain development.
Commitment to animal-free research
The EUSAAT Congress 2024 was dedicated to the 3R principles (Replacement, Reduction and Refinement) in relation to animal testing. Since EU Directive 2010/63, member states have been obliged to take measures to implement these principles. Experts from science, industry, animal welfare and politics met in Linz to discuss alternative methods to animal testing.
The topics ranged from new cell culture technologies such as 3D models, organ-on-a-chip systems and stem cell-based models to in silico models for applications in toxicology and disease research. In addition, ethical and political aspects of 3R implementation and progress in the establishment of 3R centres and networks were discussed. A central topic was the path to a successful ‘transition to animal-free innovation’ in the fields of toxicology, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The work of Klepe and Kardos-Török is making an important contribution here by developing alternative methods for researching the blood-brain barrier.
Important step and valuable platform
The awards for Adrian Klepe and Nikoletta Kardos-Török emphasise the relevance of their research work and AIT's commitment to biomedical research. In the long term, their findings could contribute to the development of new therapeutic approaches for neurological diseases and promote the use of animal-free methods. Winfried Neuhaus, President of EUSAAT and Principal Scientist at AIT, was very satisfied with the successful organisation of the congress: ‘Despite the challenges posed by the consequences of the floods, the event was an important step towards promoting alternative methods and provided a valuable platform for scientific exchange.’
Further information:
• Programme of the Joint Annual Meeting of ASEV and CzeSEV 2024: https://www.asev.at/download/ASEV_CzeSEV_program_2024.pdf
• Programme of the EUSAAT Kongresses 2024: https://eusaat.eu/wp-content/uploads/EUSAAT-Congress-2024-Program.pdf
• Abstracts of the EUSAAT Congress 2024 in the proceedings of the journal ALTEX edition: https://proceedings.altex.org/data/2024_02/Linz%202024_EUSAAT_2024.pdf