OH researchers grow human brain from skin cells

It sounds like a gruesome, Frankenstein-style experiment – but there is a good reason researchers at Ohio State University have a grown a human brain in a dish.

But the researchers claim that this time “we have grown the entire brain from the get-go”.

Scientists at Ohio State University say they’ve grown a almost complete human brain in a lab. They say it’s the size of a pencil eraser and has 99 percent of the genes in a fully developed fetal brain. What is there-a spinal cord, all major regions of the brain, multiple cell types, signaling circuitry and even a retina-has the potential to dramatically accelerate the pace of neuroscience research, said Anand, also a professor of neuroscience.

Dr. Anand and his team plan to utilize the information gleaned from their laboratory brain model to launch their own private projects (outside of the OSU), creating brain organoid models of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases and autism in a petri dish.

“We provide the best possible environment and conditions that replicate what’s going on in utero to support the brain”, he said of the work he completed with colleague Susan McKay, a research associate in biological chemistry and pharmacology.

It takes approximately 15 weeks for an organoid to become a brain comparable to that of a 5-week-old fetus.

One of the researchers said ethical concerns are non-existent, since the brain is not thinking in any way.

According to Zameel Cader, a consultant neurologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford who is not part of the team said, “When someone makes such an extraordinary claim as this, you have to be cautious until they are willing to reveal their data. You need an experimental system — you need a human brain”, said Anand.

Anand and his team are delaying publication of the results due to a pending patent on the technique used to grow the brain.