Meharry Researcher Donald Alcendor
Scientists in Nashville are hoping to revolutionize the study of how diseases and new drugs affect the brain. Instead of experimenting on actual brains, the idea is to integrate a few brain cells into part of a microchip, to use as a kind of model. Researchers at Vanderbilt and a colleague at Meharry Medical College are getting almost six and a half million federal dollars to work on a so-called “microbrain.”
Studying how chemicals get to the brain is complicated, and not cheap. Meharry Researcher Donald Alcendor says bringing new medicine to the market can take a decade, hundreds of millions of dollars – and a lot of rats.
“The mouse or rodent system that’s been used for a long time is somewhat of an antiquated system that was established in the 1970s. This would be a step forward – a giant leap forward by trying to mimic a human brain by putting human cells in a microfabricated device.”
Microbrains could one day make research a lot cheaper – and faster – into treatments for strokes, Alzheimer’s and AIDS.
Alcendor and a student’s research into AIDS touched off the chance encounter that drew him to Vanderbilt’s microbrain project. A grad student heard him give a lecture on the findings, and soon Vanderbilt researchers came calling. “The science leads the trail,” Alcendor says, “and takes you where it’s going.”
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM