Until now, livers, hearts and even lungs had been developed, but there was an organ that resisted. The most complex of all. A team of researchers from Ohio State University (USA) has finally developed a nearly complete human brain in a laboratory dish. This brain organoid is as mature as the brain of a five-week-old fetus and has germinated from adult human skin cells .
It is the most complete model of the human brain ever developed. It is about the size of a pencil eraser but contains 99% of the genes present in the human fetal brain . Thanks to this laboratory brain, scientists will be able to test – without ethical or medical dilemmas – experimental treatments for diseases such as Parkinson’s, autism or Alzheimer’s.
“We can not only see how a brain develops, but also its various cell types that express almost all the genes in a brain. We have tried to solve complex problems of brain disease and, now, this model has great potential for human health , since it offers us more and better options to test and develop therapies in models other than animals ”, explains René Anand, study leader.
The human brain replica is almost perfect ; It contains the main regions of the brain, a spinal cord, signaling circuits, a retina, various types of cells … the only caveat is that it lacks a vascular system. Its development has been made possible thanks to the research of Shinya Yamanaka, 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine, on the ability to reprogram adult skin cells into stem cells.
Scientists succeeded in turning pluripotent stem cells into neural tissue, components of the central nervous system or other regions of the brain: “It takes about 15 weeks to build a model that matches the brain of a five-week-old fetus. ”, Clarifies Anand.
