Due to increased life expectancy, age-associated neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases are on the rise. Stem cell-based therapies, replacing damaged neurons with healthy ones, have shown promise. However, generic therapy is limited by patient and disease variability.
Thanks to the generous grant from ERC, scientists form four European universities, Università degli Studi di Milano (UMIL), University of Lund (ULUND), Università degli Studi di Torino (UNITO), and Technical University of Denmark (DTU), will work to improve the future of anybody affected by Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases in the project CUSTOM-MADE.
Utilizing novel technologies and advanced methodologies CUSTOM-MADE, led by Professor Elena Cattaneo (UMIL), Professor Malin Parmar (ULUND), Professor Annalisa Buffo (UNITO), and Professor Jenny Emnéus (DTU bioengineering), seeks to revolutionize treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, by integrating stem cell technologies, genomics, and bioengineering to craft a tailored portfolio of stem cell products for individual patients or patient subgroups.