Your brain is a masterpiece!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Scientists have long scratched their heads studying brains. But brain tissue is a scarce resource! Can we make more brains?
Enter Yuanwei Yan and Xueyan Li from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
They developed a 3D-printed tissue that grows and functions like the human brain!
Their machine squeezed out a soft gel with brain cells inside. Within just five weeks, the cells were chatting away and making structures! And different cell cocktails mimicked different brain regions and functions!
This new tissue could help us understand how the healthy brain works. And it’s a potential game-changer for understanding conditions like Down syndrome or Alzheimer’s.
So instead of Beyond Burgers try our new Beyond Brains! With Chipotle Mayo… Nah
Reference: Yan, Y., Li, X., Gao, Y., Mathivanan, S., Kong, L., Tao, Y., Dong, Y., Li, X., Bhattacharyya, A., Zhao, X., & Zhang, S. C. (2024). 3D bioprinting of human neural tissues with functional connectivity. Cell stem cell, 31(2), 260–274.e7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2023.12.009