GE Healthcare, Harvard medical school to collaborate on nervous system research

Waukesha, Wis. -- GE Healthcare will collaborate with the Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration & Repair,using GE Healthcare's cellular imaging system, the IN Cell Analyzer, to enhance research of the human central nervous system and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, the company announced on Thursday.

In addition, the Harvard center and GE will work together to develop new software tools that will help speed disease analysis in the lab.

GE Healthcare's IN Cell Analyzer is an imaging system used by researchers in pharmaceutical and academic labs to analyze a variety of cellular processes in disease definition and drug development. The HCNR was established to develop therapies for neurodegenerative diseases through collaborative translational research.

"This collaboration could result in a better understanding of degenerative diseases that affect the brain, which is currently not well understood by the medical community," said Stephen Wong, PhD, P.E., director of the HCNR Center for Bioinformatics, and an associate professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School. "We can see cells more clearly and how they react to specific drugs. This gives our researchers a better view of complex neurological processes that impact the progression of diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease."