Pharmacology Seminar Series: Dr Florian Merkle, Drug Discovery, Action, and Repurposing in iPSC-derived Neurons

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• Florian Merkle, Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge
• Friday 07 March 2025, 16:00-17:00
• Seminar Room (Level 2), Dept of Pharmacology .

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Daniel Paolo Juan.

Dr Florian Merkle

Principal Investigator, Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge

Drug Discovery, Action, and Repurposing in iPSC-derived Neurons

The Merkle lab studies rare human brain cell populations that regulate hunger, and whose activity is related to obesity and diabetes. Specifically, they differentiate human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into hypothalamic POMC neurons that suppress appetite, and then characterize how they respond to existing anti-obesity drugs such as semaglutide/Ozempic, as well as using them to discover novel therapeutic strategies. In the past years, we have developed scalable methods to measure the functional activity of POMC neurons using calcium imaging on high-content confocal microscopes, and by measuring their secretion of the appetite-suppressing neuropeptide MSH in a high-throughput assay. We look forward to harnessing these models with our colleagues in Pharmacology as our work moves increasingly toward therapeutic translation.

This talk is part of the Department of Pharmacology Seminar Series series.

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• Biology
• Cambridge Neuroscience Seminars
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• Department of Pharmacology Seminar Series
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