If you remember xenobots, mobile clusters of frog cells, now you might be interested to learn that some of the same team brings us human cell clusters called anthrobots. Both frog and human cellular clusters are considered types of biobots or robots made of cells. To me, anthrobots seem akin to human organoids or assembloids. […]
Dishing on biobots like xenobots & anthrobots vs. organoids Read More »
Organoids including brain organoids are an exciting, relatively new area of research. This technology is having a powerful impact on biomedical science, which is the focus of today’s post. What’s in this post Definition of organoids | Brain organoids | Challenges for mini-brains | Cutting edge cerebral organoids | References Definition of organoids and brain organoids
How brain organoids are transforming research Read More »
This has been one of those weeks where I spent some time thinking about taking risks in science. How much risk one should take? Risks can come in many forms. It could be at the core level at the bench doing specific experiments and not others. There’s risk in clinical trials, and even in advocacy. Sometimes
Weekly science reads: Macchiarini trial, somites, CRISPR babies Read More »
The past year was all over the place for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field. As you can see in my scoring of my 21 predictions for 2021, quite a few things were surprises in terms of what did and didn’t happen. Here’s an overview of the top stories of the year in our
Top stem cell stories of 2021: COVID, diabetes, human embryos, clinics in court Read More »
Sometimes a paper really catches your eye like a new Cell Stem Cell pub reporting eye-like structures grown on brain organoids. The paper is Human brain organoids assemble functionally integrated bilateral optic vesicles. Let’s take a quick look at this paper, its context, and the potential big-picture implications. Brain organoids with “eyes”? At first glance,
A look at “eyes on the brain organoids” Cell Stem Cell paper Read More »
It’s been a little quiet here on The Niche for the past week as I was off in Yellowstone National Park, but I’m back with this week’s recommended weekly reads including a section on organoids. First, I want to share a nature pic from the trip. A highlight was encountering a badger in Lamar Valley
Weekly reads: badgers, organoids, The Onion, & more Read More »
This was an unusual week in that three papers in a sense collided together related to embryo production and growth, raising new research possibilities but also serious ethical questions. New research: what is an embryo & what is not? The first two Nature papers reported generating the most realistic models of human embryos from scratch
Weekly reads: embryo pubs stir things up, organoids crying, & more Read More »
Organoids and especially brain organoids, which are made from pluripotent stem cells, are one of the most interesting developmental biology technologies of the last half a dozen or so years. Still some folks can’t help but get carried away when thinking about brain organoids it seems. A new Science paper from a team led by
Dissecting that Neanderthal brain organoids Science pub Read More »
Organoids are providing a novel avenue into the pathogenesis of COVID-19 and novel models for drug screening. A number of new preprints on respiratory organoids shed new light in this area. They were highlighted in a Nature newsy piece, Mini organs reveal how the coronavirus ravages the body. It’s a challenge to study COVID-19 infections because just infecting
Weekly reads: organoids, COVID-19, CIRM & cool new pubs Read More »
There’s a new paper in Cell Stem Cell on esophageal organoids that has really caught people’s attention. It is entitled, “3D Modeling of Esophageal Development using Human PSC-Derived Basal Progenitors Reveals a Critical Role for Notch Signaling.” It comes from a team led by Jianwen Que. Update: I didn’t realize when I first did this post that
Digesting new esophageal organoids papers Read More »