Harvard neuroscientist Paola Arlotta sees disease-fighting potential in brain organoids
Human brain disorders have always presented researchers with a daunting challenge. They’re hard to study in laboratory mice because they affect the very organ that separates us from animals. And they’re difficult to study in humans because patient safety depends on noninvasive techniques. Enter the brain organoid. Advances in stem cell biology and a new appreciation of the self-organizing powers of developing brain tissue have allowed researchers to create 3-D clusters of living brain that open a new window onto brain development and disease. “I think that these brain organoids hold incredible potential for modeling human neurological disease in completely new ways,” says Paola Arlotta, the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and chair of Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. “I like to imagine a future scenario where we will be able to ask very precise questions about what goes wrong in the context of psychiatric...