Tucked away in Room 112A of the Biomedical Center, a select group of students can be found spending hours each week cultivating human stem cells. The 15 students taking BIOL 0610: “Modeling Human Disease Using Stem Cells” have the unique chance to design a research project using the cells to explore Alzheimer's disease.
Only a few universities nationwide, including the University of Southern California and Harvard, offer courses that allow undergraduates to work with human stem cells hands-on, according to Chuck Toth, director of the Brown University Multidisciplinary Teaching Laboratories and adjunct professor of biology.
Established just this semester, the course is the only Community-Based Learning and Research course offered by the Program in Biology, Toth said. Students come into the class with varying levels of research experience, but all are given the opportunity to propose and carry out a research project focused on Alzheimer’s using human induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs — adult cells derived from skin or blood that have been reprogrammed to adopt an embryonic-like state. Researchers can then differentiate these iPSCs into any other cell type in the body.
Since they were first isolated in 1998, human embryonic stem cells, or hESCs, have provided rich possibilities for biomedical research and therapy due to their pluripotency — their special ability to differentiate into any cell type. But their derivation from embryos has long raised ethical controversies. iPSCs, which were discovered in 2006, circumvent this issue.
“It’s a steep learning curve, but I think (students are) invested because it’s their own work in there, and I can see they’re really passionate and excited,” Toth said. “That’s what makes it fun and rewarding for me with the class.”
Farthuse Akhter ’25 and Vanya Noel ’25.5 are researching the role of the APOE4 gene — a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease — in increasing cholesterol levels. They are also exploring ways to decrease these levels by treating the cells with tocotrienol, a natural compound belonging to the vitamin E family that has been shown to reduce cholesterol levels in other cell types.
“It’s a lot of hands-on learning, which I really love,” Akhter said, emphasizing how much she has learned thus far.
Both Noel and Akhter praised Toth’s ability to support students, especially as many have limited research experience.
“He’s a really good mentor and very patient,” Noel said. “I’ve learned a lot of skills like culturing stem cells and just generally setting up biological experiments.”
As part of the CBLR designation, the course enables students to engage in community outreach through Butler Hospital’s Memory and Aging Program, an affiliate of the Warren Alpert Medical School. Those in the class have the opportunity to volunteer in the hospital’s infusion room and converse with patients, including some with mild Alzheimer’s, said Tara Tang, the outreach manager for MAP.
“What I have seen personally is some wonderful students with wonderful questions, just being in the community, talking to different people, making connections,” Tang said. “I think that’s really exciting to see and have them be excited about the science that’s happening.”
Toth, who credited Tang with developing the course’s partnership with Butler Hospital, said that giving students the chance to engage with patients provides a valuable opportunity to see the impacts of their research.
“I think it’s a great way to think about the science of Alzheimer’s and how one studies it, but I think more importantly, it allows them to see the effects of Alzheimer’s in the community,” Toth said.
Toth, who is in his first year of teaching at Brown, taught a stem cell class for 11 years as a biology professor at Providence College. He began developing the course structure for BIOL 0610 from scratch when he arrived at Brown just under two years ago.
Toth added he wasn’t nervous about teaching the inaugural course, given his experience working with stem cells at Providence College. He also attributed the course’s success to two undergraduate teaching assistants, who come into the lab on the weekends and outside of class time to support the students’ projects.
Last semester, Yumiko Imai ’26 helped develop the groundwork for the course, working with Toth through an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award. Imai is now a UTA for the course, and said that “being able to TA this semester is really exciting because all this work that we did last semester in developing everything to be ready has come to fruition.”
“The group of students is really great,” Imai added. “It feels like the class is really teaching them tangible skills.”
Beyond fostering research experience and participating in community service, the class can also help students when applying for research or internship opportunities, since hands-on experience with human stem cells is rare among undergraduates, Toth said.
“Many of them might be thinking about grad school, and so having this early exposure to the field can be informative for them,” he added.
While the class may only be in its inaugural year, Toth and Tang hope to build upon the initial success of the course and their newfound partnership in the future.
“The future is so bright,” Tang said. “We hope it’s just the beginning.”
Jonathan Kim is a senior staff writer covering Science and Research. He is a first-year student from Culver City, California planning to study Public Health or Health and Human Biology. In his free time, you can find him going for a run, working on the NYT crossword or following the Dodgers.
