organoid

Mini human brains, grown from stem cells and implanted into living mice, have for the first time been shown to respond to things the mice were seeing. Scientists were able to watch the responses in real time thanks to specialized graphene electrodes.

Scientists have grown mini eyes from human cells in the lab. These eye organoids provide good models of the real thing to help scientists study diseases that cause blindness and potentially find treatments.

Researchers have created induced pluripotent stem cells from the genetic material of the critically endangered Sumatran rhino, potentially providing new ways to help conservation efforts. They even used them to grow mini rhino brains in lab dishes.

Scientists studying the way hair follicles take shape in the human body have found new success in the lab, demonstrating a way of growing fully matured forms of them in culture with hopes of pioneering advanced treatments for hair loss disorders.

In a significant step for neuroscience, researchers at Stanford University have transplanted human neurons into rat brains, seen them mature into hybridized brain circuits and then used them to influence the rodents’ behavior.

Scientists have demonstrated that clusters of brain cells in a lab dish can be taught to play Pong in an approximation of sentience. This is the first time that these cells have performed goal-directed tasks, opening the door for better brain models.

Lab-grown mini-organs are opening up new ways to model biology, diseases and new treatments. Now scientists have created the most advanced stomach organoids so far, composed of three cell types which allows them to contract and produce acid.

Lab-grown replicas of the pancreas have been developed by scientists at MIT, with the team hopeful the technology behind them can not just help develop new drugs for cancers afflicting the organ, but other particularly deadly types as well.

Lab-grown mini-brains can help us crack the puzzle of our own minds. Scientists have made a major breakthrough by growing mini-brains with the pathological features of Parkinson’s disease for the first time, paving the way towards better treatments.

Researchers have made a striking breakthrough in lab-grown mini organs. Using induced pluriopotent stem cells, the team induced brain organoids to develop rudimentary eye structures that can sense light and send signals to the rest of the brain.

We currently rear animals for meat and dairy, cut down forests for wood, harvest organs from the deceased and mine the earth for diamonds. But what if all these things, and more, could be grown in a lab?

An extraordinary new study has detailed the development of a nearly complete mouse embryo – with muscles, blood vessels and a tiny beating heart – grown in a lab dish out of stem cells, presenting the most sophisticated “embryo in a dish” created to date.