Miriam Bibel is Senior Research Investigator at The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. In her current position she is Project Head in Neurodegeneration/Neuroscience and the scientific representative for embryonic stem cell research in Novartis Basel. Her postdoctoral work at the Friedrich Miescher Institute on establishing a novel system to differentiate mouse embryonic stem (ES) cells into neurons (for which a collaboration with the lab of Austin Smith was key) led her to establish this system for drug discovery within Novartis. Its novel aspect of generating a defined and especially uniform population of CNS neurons opens new opportunities to study mechanisms of neurodegeneration and neuroregeneration in vitro, identify and validate targets of neurodegenerative diseases and also use neuronal populations for screening assays in drug discovery. It enables drug discovery to work with mature neurons yet profiting from the advantages of cell lines, such as unlimited cell numbers and genetic modification, and at the same time being able to address specific properties of mature neurons, such as synaptic function and neurite outgrowth. We use this model system in particular to introduce disease-relevant mutations in ES cells and by comparing wild-type and mutant differentiated neurons analyze processes of neuronal cell death and signaling pathways in neurodegeneration and neuroregeneration. The possibility to do gene profiling and biochemistry on homogenous mutant neurons has enabled us to identify a novel pathway link for mutations in neurodegeneration and establish relevant assay readouts for neurons in HTS format as a novel aspect for drug screening.
Novartis is highly interested to use human neurons in vitro to dissect human specific CNS disease mechanisms. The collaboration with Yves-Alain Barde at the Biocenter is set for establishing consistent protocols for human ES cell differentiation into neurons.
Within Novartis the group has access to a plethora of state-of-the-art and high-throughput technologies, such as gene profiling, proteomics and imaging. Contacts to all major biotech companies in the field of stem cells have been established, such as StemCell Sciences, StemCell Innovations, Syndey IVF and many more. Several further collaborations in the stem cell field as well as neurobiology are ongoing, including in Basel (especially successful with Dirk Schübeler at the FMI) and Zürich.

    * The differentiation system is filed as patent application:
UK Patent Application No 0410011.1, Filing 2004-05-05, Neural Cell Differentiation Method