Russian scientists created a technology to grow mini brains in a lab. The successful experiment is expected to help better monitor the organ’s development stages and make progress in curing hereditary diseases.
The new approach to genetic disorders was presented by the Novosibirsk Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Siberian Branch. The institute is working on cultivating brains in laboratory conditions. Artificially-grown neural tissue will help scientists in conducting a variety of tests and will even help to create new types of medication in the future, Izvestia reports. Of course, the focus of the experiment is on diseases that affect brain – although the range of such ailments is quite broad, from Zika virus to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
The scientists do not expect to grow a full-fledged human brain (for example, for transplantation) any time soon.
Representatives of the research organization say that the applied technology has already been proven effective. For example, Siberian geneticists earlier succeeded in developing a new cardiac medication, which took only five years since the first tests.