Getting to know our Core Facilities: The Neuro’s Early Drug Discovery Unit 

 

In this new series, we highlight the Core Facilities of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, and the important contributions they make to our research.  

 

In our first edition, we meet the team behind The Neuro’s Early Drug Discovery Unit (EDDU), a specialized platform dedicated to the use of stem cells to model brain disease on a dish. EDDU Director Thomas Durcan, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery, and two EDDU power users – Geneviève Bernard, MD, Professor, Department of Neurology & Neurosurgery and Department of Pediatrics, and Christopher Moraes, PhD, PhD: Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Advanced Cellular Microenvironments; Associate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering – fill us in on what makes this Core Facility tick. 

 

In a nutshell, what does the EDDU do?  

Thomas Durcan (TD): The EDDU, in collaboration with The Neuro’s open-access multimodal biorepository C-BIG Repository, generates induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients with neurological disorders.  

 

Could you share a recent breakthrough the EDDU was involved in? 

TD: A recent project now in preprint (Deyab et al. 2025), led by the Fon lab and Ghislaine Deyab, highlights how network activity abnormalities emerge over time in a midbrain organoid model of Parkinson’s disease.  

 

What opportunities for training and education does the EDDU offer? 

TD: Our team includes a diverse group of experts in iPSC-derived cells, and we welcome the opportunity to train anyone interested in iPSC culture and differentiation. So far, we have trained around 375 users, from students to staff from labs and companies across Quebec and beyond. 

In line with our open science mission at The Neuro, our protocols are openly available as downloadable PDFs on our website and a resource hub. To further support the research community, we have also developed video protocols to provide clear, visual demonstrations of key stem cell techniques. These videos are available in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and French, to make this knowledge accessible to researchers around the world. 

We also host a virtual iPSC seminar multiple times a year to provide our users with the opportunity to hear about the latest advancements in stem cell research from around the world. The seminar is open to all and offers a portal for interested trainees to learn about emerging techniques and recent scientific studies in the field. 

 

What do you think makes the EDDU unique among McGill’s Core Facilities? 

TD: While many other platforms focus on helping a user make a cell line or run an assay, at the EDDU we can help you with all aspects of a project. New to stem cells? We can work with you from the start, guiding any user through the steps needed to be trained and to set up iPSCs in their research. We collaborate to adapt existing workflows or develop new ones, and we can partner with users in developing grant applications across various disease indications. Often, these partnerships are long-lasting, and from a seed, blossom into a garden full of possibilities. 

 

Dr. Bernard, how did your collaboration with the EDDU shape the design, execution, or success of your study?  

GB: Our collaboration with the EDDU led to an optimized workflow to generate and characterize Oligodendrocytes (OLs) from iPSCs (https://doi.org/10.1002/glia.24524). This is now instrumental for our projects as we look to better understand the role of causative genes in the development of leukodystrophies, whilst at the same time assessing novel therapeutics. 

Over the past seven years, the EDDU provided critical support to our group in helping to establish iPSC culture and OLs differentiation and getting this established within our own tissue culture space.  

Their infrastructure, combined with an openness to co-developing new assays, allowed us to move efficiently from concept to execution, leading to a McGill D2R translational award, which the EDDU will be assisting with. 

 

How about you, Prof. Moraes? 

CM: My lab develops microengineered tools to understand and regulate the local microenvironment during tissue development and disease progression. Working with the EDDU, we have been applying this paradigm to uncover the mechanical organizing principles that underlie brain organoid development.  

 

Dr. Bernard and Prof. Moraes, what unique advantages or research opportunities did the EDDU provide, particularly regarding technical support, data analysis or access to top technology?  

GB: Working with the EDDU provided us with access to a highly specialized ecosystem of technical expertise, infrastructure, and collaborative support that would have been difficult to replicate elsewhere. One of the most significant advantages was simply having someone around to train people in my lab, or to bounce questions off on whether this was right or wrong approach. This helped move things along to where we are today, where iPSCs are well established in my group and the EDDU is only a stone’s throw away if we need technical advice, encouragement or a group to bounce ideas off.  

CM: Our work with the EDDU has been truly collaborative, with their insights and our technologies being developing iteratively to define the central problem, and leverage our unusual findings for real-world and practical applications. This collaborative spirit is supported by deep field-specific knowledge in organoid development and maturation at the EDDU, as well as the in-house image analysis pipelines, and access to state-of-the-art confocal imaging and tissue clearing technologies that they have developed.  Without this particular combination of breadth, depth, and technical capabilities, this work would simply have not been possible. 

 

Prof. Durcan, does the EDDU collaborate with industry partners as well as academic ones? 

TD: Yes, our advanced infrastructure and streamlined workflows are designed to support both academic and industry partners engaged in stem cell research. We collaborate closely with these partners, leveraging our expertise to strengthen their projects and accelerate the development of potential treatments for neurological diseases. 

 

What’s next for the EDDU? 

TD: We are exploring ways to attract new funding to expand our ability to generate and characterize increasing numbers of iPSCs, enhance our flow cytometry and high-content imaging capabilities to better support CRISPR-based screens, and integrate machine learning into our workflows. This requires investment in both data curation and analysis, something we are developing collaboratively across teams and departments. High-quality datasets from our patient lines will be a significant driver in assessing new targets and screening novel therapeutics. 

 

Find out how Core Facilities can help you 

Learn more about our Core Facilities, including an interactive map designed to explore, and connect with our Faculty’s research ecosystem to see how these facilities can help with your research. 

 

Click on any image to launch a slideshow. (Images courtesy EDDU)