Salk creates brain organoids with functional blood vessels

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies created human brain organoids that recruited and developed functional blood vessels when grafted into mice. The approach could help develop organoid models that come closer to mirroring a human brain's native environment for drug development. The findings appeared in Nature Biotechnology.

In vitro brain organoids pose research limitations because they lack vascular circulation microenvironments. Without blood vessels to deliver oxygen and nutrients, the organoids become susceptible to necrosis, limited growth and impaired development...