Stanford University - Meet Assembloids, Mini Human Brains With Muscles Attached [SingularityHub, 12 January 2021]

Title:

Meet assembloids, mini human brains with muscles attached

 

Author:

Shelly Fan

 

Published:

SingularityHub, 12 January 2021

https://singularityhub.com/2021/01/12/meet-assembloids-mini-human-brains-with-muscles-attached/

 

From the article:

It’s not often that a twitching, snowman-shaped blob of 3D human tissue makes someone’s day.  

 

But when Dr. Sergiu Pasca at Stanford University witnessed the tiny movement, he knew his lab had achieved something special. You see, the blob was evolved from three lab-grown chunks of human tissue: a mini-brain, mini-spinal cord, and mini-muscle. Each individual component, churned to eerie humanoid perfection inside bubbling incubators, is already a work of scientific genius. But Pasca took the extra step, marinating the three components together inside a soup of nutrients.

 

Also see:

Miura, Y., Li, MY., Birey, F. et al. Generation of human striatal organoids and cortico-striatal assembloids from human pluripotent stem cells. Nature Biotechnolgy, 38, 1421–1430 (3 December 2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-00763-w

 

Lund University, Sweden - New method provides unique insight into the development of the human brain

Title:
New method provides unique insight into the development of the human brain

Published:
Lund University, 25 May 2020
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/new-method-provides-unique-insight-into-the-development-of-the-human-brain

From the article:
"Stem cell researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a new research model of the early embryonic brain. The aim of the model is to study the very earliest stages of brain to understand how different regions in the brain are formed during embryonic development. With this new insight, researchers hope to be able to produce different types of neural cells for the treatment of neurological diseases more efficiently. The study is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology."