Specialists from Johns Hopkins University have been able to grow a miniature brain from stem cells, on which various experiments can be carried out. According to scientists, this achievement will allow them to make many of the research aimed at studying nerve cells more accessible. Testing the action of certain chemical compounds or simulating the development of a neurodegenerative disease does not require much difficulty.
Created in the laboratory by Professor Thomas Hartung and his colleagues, the mini-brain is barely visible to the naked eye (350 microns in diameter), but about a thousand of these objects can be grown in a Petri dish at a time. All of them are reproduced from induced pluripotent cells, that is, stem cells obtained by epigenetic reprogramming. This procedure takes approximately 8 weeks. At the end of cultivation, in addition to neurons, neuroglial cells (astrocytes and oligodendrocytes) are formed, which provide conditions for the generation and transmission of nerve impulses.
The mini-brain, according to experts, is even capable of exhibiting spontaneous electrical activity.
The professor notes that most modern research on the effectiveness of drugs requires hundreds of thousands of laboratory animals. The latest development will help not only to reduce their number, but also to obtain much more useful information.
According to the researchers, the technology they have proposed for growing a mini-brain will also make it possible to simulate neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, etc.) using patients' skin cells. The objects created will certainly accelerate the development of treatment methods, giving patients hope for a possible recovery.
In the near future, the mini-brain cultivation method will be patented, and the ORGANOME commercial enterprise, founded by Professor Hartung, will take responsibility for its introduction into medical practice. The researchers hope that they will be able to start production as early as 2016.