Scientists from the Ohio State University claim that they have grown an almost fully-formed human brain in their lab, a colossal breakthrough for those researching diseases and disorders of the brain—if it’s true, that is.
According to a presentation at the Military Health System Research Symposium (which runs from August 17-20 this year), the diminutive brain resembles that of a five-week-old fetus, complete with a spinal cord, signaling circuitry, and even a retina—although it’s only the size of a pencil eraser.
Up until now, the closest scientists have come to lab-growing a human brain is with cerebral organoids. These organoids are tiny 3D lumps of brain tissue that have some, but not all, aspects of a human brain in the first trimester, and are grown using a human skin cell.
“We have grown the entire brain from the get-go,” said Rene Anand, who presented the research. Further, he went on to claim that their brain contains 99% of the complete brain’s cell types and genes.
The group also indicated that ethical concerns were non-existent. First, the brain wasn’t engineered from fetal stem cells, but, like the cerebral organoids, was grown from adult skin cells. Anand explained the skin cells were converted into pluripotent stem cells (which can become almost any other cell in the body), and then were directed into becoming brain and spinal cord cells.
Second, the brain isn’t conscious. “We don’t have any sensory stimuli entering the brain. This brain is not thinking in any way,” he said.
There’s always a caveat
Despite this enormous leap in technology, many scientists have expressed concerns over the findings. The full details of the process—which is patent pending—have not been released yet. This means no peer review has been conducted, and scientists have no means to vet the results.
Zameel Cader, a consultant neurologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, was excited yet wary. “When someone makes such an extraordinary claim as this, you have to be cautious until they are willing to reveal their data,” he told The Guardian.
However, it is suspected that the technique used is similar to that of Shinya Yamanaka, the first person to successfully reprogram mature cells into pluripotent stem cells. (He won the Nobel Prize for his work in 2012.)
And if the results are true, research into the brain could be revolutionized. Since this petri dish brain is made from a person’s skin cell, it contains all of their DNA—meaning it could be used to study their individual illnesses. “If you have an inherited disease, for example, you could give us a sample of skin cells, we could make a brain and then ask what’s going on,” said Anand.
Or, researchers could use this technique to see how different substances affect the growing brain. “We can look at the expression of every gene in the human genome at every step of the development process and see how they change with different toxins. Maybe then we’ll be able to say ‘holy cow, this one isn’t good for you.’”
Currently, the team is looking at using the brain for military research—like for examining PTSD or traumatic brain injury.
However, they acknowledged it could go far beyond this: “We’ve struggled for a long time trying to solve complex brain disease problems that cause tremendous pain and suffering. The power of this brain model bodes very well for human health because it gives us better and more relevant options to test and develop therapeutics other than rodents.”
(Image credit: Ohio State University)
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