Professor Park Hee Ho (on the top left corner), with collaborators from Sejong University and KAIST (Provided by Korea University)

By Ko Sukyoung sugar3241@korea.ac.kr

A Korea University (KU) research team led by Professor Park Hee Ho (Division of Biotechnology), in collaboration with research teams from Sejong University and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has developed a non-invasive platform that can track Alzheimer’s disease progression in real time using brain organoids, or laboratory-grown “mini brains.” Instead of relying only on conventional cell or animal experiments, the team created brain organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells, known as hiPSCs. These are ordinary adult cells that have been reprogrammed into stem-like cells, allowing them to grow into brain tissue. This gives researchers a closer model of the human brain and helps them observe disease progression more accurately.
 
The platform works by controlling PSEN1M146I, a gene mutation associated with familial Alzheimer’s disease in the mini brain model. This allows the organoids to reproduce Alzheimer’s-like changes, including abnormal protein buildup, neural cell damage, and altered cellular metabolism in a controlled laboratory setting. The researchers then used multimodal fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FILM), an imaging method that measures how long tiny light signals from metabolic molecules last inside living cells. Since diseased cells process energy differently from healthy cells, these signals change as the disease progresses. Through FILM, the platform can distinguish Alzheimer’s-related abnormalities and monitor them continuously without cutting or staining the tissue.
출처 : 고려대학교 고파스 2026-10-17 05:38:12: