Reprogramming Stars #22: Cellular Reprogramming as a Route for Decoding Neurodegenerative Disorders—An Interview with Dr. Janelle Drouin-Ouellet

REPROGRAMMING STAR: Dr. Janelle Drouin-Ouellet is an associate professor at the Université de Montréal, Canada, a neuroscientist, and a Canada Research Chair in Direct Neural Reprogramming. Her research group works with direct neural reprogramming to study neurodegenerative disorders and identify new therapeutic targets. Uncovering age-related drivers of neurodegeneration through cellular reprogramming, Dr. Drouin-Ouellet’slab uses specific approaches such as highcontent confocal microscopy, gene expression profiling, and proteomics. To study the interplay between cellular aging and Parkinson’s disease, in addition to using direct cellular reprogramming, her group investigates approaches to accelerate cellular aging in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)- derived immune cells such as microglia. Her group is working on understanding the mechanisms of neuronal reprogramming a means to improve current direct neuronal reprogramming methods and generate subtypespecific neurons resembling more closely the neuronal populations of the central nervous system to improve disease modeling and brain repair strategies.