From June 3-6th, 2025 the ENCALS 25 meeting was organized in Turin (Italy). ENCALS represents the assocaition of ALS centers in Europe. Prof. Andjus was registered to present a poster on our project „The road to NIMOCHIP project: past present and future – the use of ALS IgGs for an innovative automated multifunctional diagnostics device”. Due to a serious injury prof Andjus was indisposed to present the poster, however Dr Zorica Stević, former participant in the project took part at the ENCALS meeting and kindly accepted to present the poster.

NIMOCHIP project: use of ALS IgGs for an innovative automated multifunctional diagnostics device

The background for the current project technology is inspired by the early experiments with ALS IgGs of Stanley Appel and Jozsef Engelhardt (e.g. PNAS 1991 88:647). Our studies with ALS IgGs comprised of diverse physiological phenomena in vitro: a) rise in frequency of postsynaptic currents (Andjus et al., 1996,1997); b) intracellular calcium mobilization in response to ALS IgGs on neurons and glia (Milošević et al.,2013); c) acute free radical release in a microglial cell line (Milošević et al., 2017); and d) increase in the mobility of acidic vesicles (mostly endosomes and lysosomes) in primary cortical astrocytes (Stenovec et al., 2011).

Novel and preliminary results with ALS IgGs will be presented demonstrating in vitro: a) Fc-fragment dependence of the Ca 2+ response in astrocytes, b) the physicochemical/metabolic alterations in astrocytes vs microglia upon ALS IgG – treatment (FTIR synchrotron light source), c) ultrastructural changes in astrocytes (SEM and AFM studies), and d) desynchronization of neuronal network activity. Finally, we will present the rationale based on the above findings and the state of the art of the microfluidic lab/optics-on-a-chip that offers disruptive molecular diagnostics technology at the cellular imaging level and an approach to personalized patient stratification. The multidisciplinary data analysis methodology with machine learning will improve the performance towards diagnosis, prediction, monitoring, intervention or assessment of therapeutic response.

Supported by the Science Fund Republic of Serbia grant #4242.