Dr. Anna Falk

Biography

Dr. Anna Falk Department of Neuroscience – The European Neuroscience Institute at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm

Research Interest

We are interested in how the correct size and organization of the human brain is established and the role of proper neural stem cell regulation in the process. Studies of human brain development in health and disease have until recently been close to impossible due to lack of relevant tissue to study. We use reprogramming, iPS cells and neural differentiation as tools to derive the relevant cells to study. We are currently studying neurodevelopmental disorders like, Down Syndrome, ASD, monogenetic intellectual disabilities in addition to Alzheimer’s disease. We reprogram patient cells to iPS cells, which we use to derive neural stem cells and neurons for our in vitro studies. We compare patient and control neural stem cells and neurons in processes like proliferation, differentiation, migration, apoptosis, and functionality of neurons. We have detected diseases phenotypes in patient specific neural stem cells and/or neurons of the diseases we thus far have studied. For example, neural stem cells of Down syndrome patients proliferate slower then neural stem cells from healthy people. We are currently studying the molecular background of the slow expansion of the neural progenitor cells.