ACTRIMS 2026 | What are human-induced pluripotent stem cell models, and how can they be used in MS research?
Valentina Fossati, PhD, The Jackson Laboratory, discusses the potential of human-induced pluripotent stem cell models (iPSCs) in studying multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr Fossati highlights that iPSCs can be used for disease modeling and testing drugs directly on the patient’s cells. This interview is part of our coverage of the 11th Annual Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ACTRIMS) Forum, held in San Diego, CA.
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Transcript
Human-induced pluripotent stem cell models, or we call them iPS, are, I would say, a science fiction that became reality in a 2006 groundbreaking discovery where it was found that you can basically convert any somatic cell back into a stem cell that is equivalent to an embryonic stem cell. Practically, this means that now we can just ask any person for just a few drops of blood and we can convert these blood cells into stem cells that we can keep indefinitely and we can expand and we can differentiate into any cell type that we want...
Human-induced pluripotent stem cell models, or we call them iPS, are, I would say, a science fiction that became reality in a 2006 groundbreaking discovery where it was found that you can basically convert any somatic cell back into a stem cell that is equivalent to an embryonic stem cell. Practically, this means that now we can just ask any person for just a few drops of blood and we can convert these blood cells into stem cells that we can keep indefinitely and we can expand and we can differentiate into any cell type that we want. And so my lab and many other labs have been using this for studying neurodegenerative diseases and also, in particular, MS. And the great importance of this, the fact that you’re taking the cells from the patient, is that you have the entire genetics of the patient. So all the DNA that is in these patients, including all the risk alleles, or maybe some variants that create resilience to a disease, which are still largely unknown, are there. And so we can study, but people call it sometimes an avatar in a dish. So basically, we can study your own cells in a dish. So we can use them for disease modeling, so to understand mechanisms of pathogenicity. But in the next step, we can also use them to test drugs directly on the patient’s cells. And the field of multiple sclerosis has actually been a little delayed compared to other fields. iPS modeling has been largely used for neurodevelopmental diseases to understand autism, in particular, has also now been used heavily for studying Alzheimer’s disease, for Parkinson’s disease. I would say that in MS, it’s still been – the work is still more than in its infancy, but these models are becoming very relevant, especially since last year, both the NIH and the FDA have really pushed for these new advanced methodologies or non-animal models, so these alternative methods to study diseases.
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