Developmental neurotoxicology · Human organoid models
From one cell to a human brain.
We study how the human nervous system builds itself, how medicines and the environment can change that, and how to turn what we learn in human cells into knowledge the clinic can use.
Each line is one cell. The marks along it are a record of what happened to it on the way.
- Principal investigator
- Denis Zosen, PhD, MBA
- Host
- NCMBM, University of Oslo
- Models
- Human iPSC · brain organoids · neuronal cell lines · clinical relevance
- Status
- Programme in formation, 2026–2027
What we work on
Three connected areas, studied in human cells and tissue.
How the nervous system is built
How stem cells become neurons, how neural tissue organises itself, and what sets the timing. We grow human brain and spinal cord tissue from stem cells to follow it.
What can change it
Medicines and environmental exposures reach the developing brain at different doses and at different stages. We ask what they alter, and why results differ between systems.
From the dish to the clinic
Evidence from human tissue, careful enough to inform decisions about medicines and exposures, with fewer animal experiments.
A research path
One line of enquiry, carried across four countries, two model systems and two research groups. Each step raised the problem the next one had to solve.
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2016 – 2018
How a signalling pathway shapes what a neuron becomes
Work on p53 and the MAPK cascade placed p53 at a defined position in the programme controlling neuronal differentiation. Blocking ERK1/2 then raised dopamine release: the same cascade that drives a cell to differentiate also restrains what it secretes.
Sechenov Institute, St Petersburg · first author on both -
2017 – 2018
Learning to build human tissue
Wnt signalling in central nervous system development at Biocenter Oulu, on funding I secured myself, adding CRISPR editing and iPSC-derived organoid culture. A short mission at Oslo University Hospital added cerebral organoid and spinal cord production.
University of Oulu · Oslo University Hospital · own grants, ~€31,500 -
2021
Where drugs go in the developing brain
I designed a chicken embryo model to ask where drugs actually go in the developing brain. They arrive within minutes at clinically relevant concentrations, and how far they penetrate depends on the stage of development. The group went on to use the model for further studies.
University of Oslo · first author · my own methodological contribution -
2022 – 2023
One endpoint can point the wrong way
Two antiepileptics with different morphological signatures converged on a single developmental transcription factor, PAX6. Then two antidepressants raised the reassuring molecular marker while reducing neurite outgrowth — for one drug and not the other. A single-endpoint study would have drawn the opposite conclusion.
University of Oslo · first author on both -
2025 – 2026
Carrying one question across unrelated systems
A drug-specific structural effect reproduced across a human cell line and an embryonic model, with a microRNA emerging as the bridge between them. In parallel, the first electrophysiological assessment of neuronal maturation in human iPSC-derived spinal cord organoids, where I was responsible for the differentiation the study rests on.
University of Oslo · second author, co-conceptualisation and design -
2026 →
Human neural tissue, one cell at a time
Bringing organoid culture and single-cell tools together to follow how individual neural cells respond to what reaches them.
NCMBM, University of Oslo
Track record
Figures as recorded in Scopus on 21 September 2026. The full list, with a note on my role in each paper, is on the publications page.
Recent
- Spinal cord organoid paper published in ACS Chemical Neuroscience — the first electrophysiological assessment of neuronal maturation in this system.
- Guest Researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Molecular Biosciences and Medicine, the Norwegian node of the Nordic EMBL Partnership.
- Returned to the Global Biotech Revolution forum, University of Cambridge, as one of 100 selected global leaders.
- Venlafaxine and miR-92 paper published in Neurochemistry International.
Collaboration
The work sits between biology, chemistry, clinical research and computation. Collaborators in any of those are welcome.
Open to new collaborations — get in touch
Replacing animal experiments
Two of my first-author papers exist because pregnant patients are excluded from trials and the evidence has to come from models that do not use mammals. Our current work uses human tissue only.
In the press
Science communication in Norwegian, on translational neurobiology, experimental models and the reduction of animal experiments.
- Titan · UiOStuderer hjernen med modellar for å finna årsaker til alvorlege og utbreidde sjukdommar2023
- Titan · UiOVanleg epilepsimedisin påverka hjerneutviklinga til kyllingfoster2022
- forskning.noForskarar vil erstatta dyreforsøk med hønseegg2021
- Journal coverBiochemistry and Cell Biology, 2020 — cover image of a neurosphereConfocal image from our work