Dr Madeline Lancaster, a Fellow of Clare Hall, is hosting a series of three webinars for the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) in July this year.

The set of three talks will discuss reproducibility and how to carry out credible neuroscience research using in vitro models. It will feature speakers who are experts in neural cell cultures and stem cell differentiation, and cover both academic research and industry. The BNA hopes it will provide a tool for newcomers and established scientists alike, to shine a light on important aspects of reproducibility in these model systems.

Dr Lancaster comments:
‘We’re really looking forward to these webinars, which I hope will be a useful resource to in vitro neuroscientists in the future, and really to anyone interested in how we can ensure we are doing the most robust science that stands the test of time.’

Dr Lancaster is an American developmental biologist studying neurological development and diseases of the brain. She is a group leader at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, having conducted her postdoctoral work in the lab of Jürgen Knoblich at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna, Austria. This work was supported by fellowships from EMBO, the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions. During this time Dr Lancaster worked on developing the technology of cerebral organoids. In 2015 Lancaster joined the Cell Biology division at the LMB, where she currently leads a research group studying the biological processes of human brain evolution. Her research also focuses on neurological diseases caused by abnormal brain size e.g. microencephaly and macroencephaly. The lab uses the cerebral organoid system to study how genes impact on brain development in a range of species.

Webinar programme:

Selina Wray, University College London: ‘Reproducible research using stem cell derived neurons and organoids’
8 July 2021 | 1pm BST

Iva Kelava, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology: ‘How we can make 3D models more reproducible’
15 July 2021 | 1pm BST

Clare Jones, Talisman Therapeutics: ‘Human stem cell models of neurodegeneration: complex, relevant and robust’
22 July 2021 | 13pm BST

The webinars will also be available on demand after they have run online, providing a resource to others in the future.

Learn more and sign up at https://bnacredibility.org.uk/news-events