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Professor Gabriele Lignani is leading an international team of researchers to develop a new generation of cell-state gene therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders
Over 100 million people worldwide are affected by neuropsychiatric disorders – conditions that involve both neurology and psychiatry. These disorders affect brain function and can impact emotions, mood, and behaviour.
Professor Gabriele Lignani (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) was recently awarded £7.7 million as part of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) £69m Precision Neurotechnologies programme to lead an international team to develop new gene therapy for neuropsychiatric disorders.
The project seeks to address challenges of existing drug therapies for neuropsychiatric disorders such as epilepsy, schizophrenia and dementia, which affect the entire brain and often affect other organs as well.
Professor Lignani’s team have been working in the lab to create a new generation of cell-state gene therapies. These address the underlying neuronal circuit dysfunction causing over or underactivity of cells in the brain, which can lead to the symptoms of neuropsychiatric disorders, such as seizures in the case of epilepsy.
The idea is that you can safely introduce a harmless virus into the bloodstream via an injection. This viral vector will travel up to the brain, and then, using advanced technology like ultrasound, you can precisely activate this virus in specific areas of the brain where it's needed.
Professor Lignani and his team hope that at the end of the project, which is funded for four years, they will be in a position to start clinical trials.