Creating Patient-Specific Neural Cells for the In Vitro Study of Brain Disorders

• A key limitation of the field is difficulty in accurately defining cell state
• Next step will be building complexity by achieving network and circuit structures
• Epigenetic factors and somatic mosaicism in iPS cells may contribute to disease
• A critical advance will be improving scalability and reproducibility of assays

SummaryAs a group, we met to discuss the current challenges for creating meaningful patient-specific in vitro models to study brain disorders. Although the convergence of findings between laboratories and patient cohorts provided us confidence and optimism that hiPSC-based platforms will inform future drug discovery efforts, a number of critical technical challenges remain. This opinion piece outlines our collective views on the current state of hiPSC-based disease modeling and discusses what we see to be the critical objectives that must be addressed collectively as a field.