A group of scientists across several institutions, including the Lieber Institute, made news last week when they turned a corner in their two-year long research project, successfully growing human ‘mini-brains’ in the lab.
Development of these ‘mini-brains’ in the lab was possible through collaboration between scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School, the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), and the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD). Together researchers were able to successfully grow pieces of tissue known as organoids that for the first time possessed two defining characteristics of the human midbrain, making it a landmark scientific achievement.
Scientists used stem cells to grow pieces of living tissue measuring about 2 to 3 mm long. While growth of brain tissue has been successful in the past, this initiative succeeded in imitating human midbrain development validated by the presence of dopaminergic neurons and neuromelanin, a pigment specific to the human midbrain. Responsible for movement, vision and hearing, the midbrain has been linked to movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease. More specifically, patients with Parkinson’s disease show significantly lower levels of neuromelanin in the midbrain compared to non-Parkinson’s controls. By creating live midbrain tissue for study, scientists are optimistic there will be new and improved testing and drug discovery for Parkinson’s and related disorders.
The study, published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is titled “Midbrain-like Organoids from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Contain Functional Dopaminergic and Neuromelanin-Producing Neurons.”The paper can be found online here: http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/abstract/S1934-5909(16)30200-4
Dr. Shawn Je, Assistant Professor at the Duke-NUS Medical School, helped lead the project and visited the Lieber Institute last week to present his talk, “Cell-type specific phenotyping to model neurodevelopmental disorders,” as part of the LIBD Speaker Series.