BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Brain in a dish

September 19, 2013 7:00 AM UTC

Austrian researchers grabbed headlines last month when they coaxed cultured human induced pluripotent stem cells into forming brain tissue,1 but in actuality the approach does not offer applications beyond studying very early brain development.

Engineering stem cell-derived in vitro organ models for studying development and disease has made great strides for relatively simple organs such as the intestine,2 lung3 and liver. For example, Japanese researchers have generated liver organoids from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells and shown that the in vitro-grown tissue was functional when transplanted into mice.4...