Finding cures for the future in the brains of the past

Brain mapping: Uniting multi-scale brain data to reveal disease mechanisms
This collaborative project combines cellular resolution data with whole-brain information to provide genuinely new insights into the pathological mechanisms underlying human brain disorders.
The challenge
In the past it has been difficult to reconcile advances made at a cellular level with a whole-brain approach
Pioneering 3D maps of the entire human brain

For decades the microscopic study of brain tissue has helped pathologists understand disease, describe the cellular diversity of the nervous system and define specific features of brain disorders. In parallel, neuroimaging methods have revealed the function and dysfunctions of whole brain neural circuits. However, technical limitations of traditional microscopy have made it difficult to relate cellular level advances to whole brain observations.
Our approach unifies neuroscience across scales, from genes to the whole brain, with the goal of revealing the mechanisms of brain disease, establishing diagnostic biomarkers and identifying new therapeutic targets.
The collaboration
This collaborative project with the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) works closely with the Geneva Brain Collection (GBC) and also uses healthy and diseased human brain tissue from other sources.
Advances in imaging techniques, particularly lightsheet microscopy present at the Advanced Lightsheet Imaging Center (ALICe), enable the imaging of much larger samples while retaining their structure.
The team will develop a next-generation histopathology approach taking advantage of novel molecular labelling techniques coupled with advanced microscopy and data analysis tools, to explore the relationship between cellular and whole brain mechanisms in both healthy and diseased tissue. It will initially focus on neurodegenerative dementia and eventually explore the broad range of conditions contained in the GBC.




Team
Updates
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16.11.2022
In conversation with Jules Scholler, PhD, Software Engineer in Bioimaging
Software Engineer in Bioimaging, Jules Scholler, describes what it's like to work at the boundary of biology, optics and computer science. The ‘in conversation’ series features members of the Wyss Center community discussing their work, their collaborations and imagining the future.
Insight -
28.06.2022
Wyss Center joins Swiss life sciences cluster BioAlps
The Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating discoveries in neuroscience to improve patient lives, has joined BioAlps, the life sciences cluster for Western Switzerland.
Collaboration -
25.01.2022
Alzheimer's disease: an alternative hypothesis based on synaptic alterations
New research suggests that targeting proteins essential to neurotransmission could be a promising alternative to treat Alzheimer's disease
Collaboration
