Mouse brains make nice homes for human brain organoids, researchers report today (April 16) in Nature Biotechnology.
Brain organoids, also known as mini-brains, are tiny clumps of brain cells grown from stem cells that researchers are using to investigate the neural underpinnings of autism and other neurological disorders. But the organoids typically grow in culture for only a few months before they die, limiting their usefulness as models of real brains. Transplanting the three-dimensional clumps of human brain tissue into the brains of mice allows the organoids to continue to develop, sprouting life-sustaining blood vessels as well as new neuronal connections, the new study reports. The work takes a step toward using brain organoids to study complexities of human brain development and disease that can’t be investigated with current techniques. Brain organoid transplantation may even one day offer a treatment option for traumatic brain injury or stroke.
“Although organoids are a great advance in human neuroscience, they are not perfect. They are missing blood vessels, immune cells and functional connections to other areas of the nervous system,” Jürgen Knoblich...
“I’m not a scarcity guy, I’m an abundance guy”
– Colossal co-founder and CEO Ben Lamm, The New Yorker, 4/14/25
Even the most casual consumers of news will have seen the run of recent headlines featuring the company Colossal Biosciences. On March 4, they announced with great fanfare the world’s first-ever woolly mice, as a first step toward creating a woolly mammoth. Then they topped that on April 7 by unveiling one...
China's most infamous scientist is attempting a comeback. He Jiankui, who went to jail for three years after claiming he had created the world's first genetically altered babies, says he remains...
By Anumita Kaur [cites CGS’ Katie Hasson], The Washington Post | 03.25.2025
Aggregated News
Genetic information company 23andMe has said that it is headed to bankruptcy court, raising questions for what happens to the DNA shared by millions of people with the company via saliva test kits.
The Center for Genetics and Society is fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
Please visit www.tides.org/state-nonprofit-disclosures for additional information.
