Nguyen-Vi Mohamed

My work is to develop a new model similar to the real human brain, in order to better understand Parkinson’s disease and find new drugs. From patients’ stem cells, which can give rise to any body cell type, I produce neurons. Those neurons grow in three dimensions, self-organize with other neuronal cells, similar to the real human brain. They reach 4 mm in size and can be kept in culture up to two years. This new model in research is called “organoid brain” or “minibrain”. This innovative model allows me to investigate the mechanisms leading to Parkinson’s disease.

I spend time every day making minibrains, feeding them, and performing experiments after they have grown for a few weeks. In order to have success in my experiments, I criticize my results every day. There are a lot of failures before getting a positive result. But we learn a lot from failures, which help us improve the science. Moreover, my research involves a lot of teamwork. Thanks to the expertise of everyone in the laboratory, we solve problems every day and make important discoveries together. In my laboratory, people come from many places (China, Ireland, France, Mexico, India, Iran) and we speak English to understand each other and talk science. I think a good scientist is someone who has curiosity, tenacity, and who is open minded.