Reactions to the development of brain organoids from human fetal brain tissue
A team led by the Princess Máxima Pediatric Oncology Center and the Hubrecht Institute (The Netherlands) has generated small 3D brain models--known as organoids--from human fetal brain tissue. Until now, these brain organoids-which attempt to resemble real organs on a miniature scale-were grown in the laboratory using pluripotent or embryonic stem cells. The new technique, published in the journal Cell, allows regions of brain tissue to self-organize into three-dimensional brain structures. The authors used these organoids and the CRISPR-Cas9 tool to simulate the development of one type of brain tumor, glioblastoma, and see how it responded to different drugs.