MRC grant success
Congratulations to Dr Calvin Chan and Profs John Mason and David Price (Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences) who have been awarded an MRC grant to model and investigate underlying causes of structural and functional brain defects in PAX6 haploinsufficiency patients using cerebral organoids.
Having already generated heterozygous mutant PAX6 iPSC lines using Crispr/Cas, Dr Chan will use a multifaceted approach made possible by collaboration with Edinburgh Neuroscience colleagues to characterise and probe cellular phenotypes, neural connectivity, and the formation and activity of functional neural circuitry using cerebral organoids to inform further studies that target these causes, ultimately to ameliorate patient symptoms.
Dr Chan, a postdoc in Prof Mason’s lab, led the application and a named Researcher Co-Investigator on the grant. The UKRI now recognise contributions made by a Researcher Co-I and their involvement in acquiring research funding and the role they have played in the leadership of the project can be used as evidence in pursuing future funding and career opportunities.