Biomedical engineers from Harvard and MIT have managed to grow
three-dimensional brain tissue in a lab using a simple and inexpensive technique.
The research team borrowed processes from the semiconductor industry to create layered stacks of the tissue. The development will allow fellow scientists to study things like neuron development, as well as model the effects of drug treatments on individual patients. "We think that by bringing this kind of control and manipulation into neurobiology, we can investigate many different directions,"
said Utkan Demirci, part of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).
Brain tissue's intricate and diverse structure meant the team needed to find a way to replicate its architectural complexity.
Cells taken from the primary cortex of rats were embedded in hydrogel sheets alongside structural support components. These layers were then stacked and sealed into the required 3D shapes using light.
The result is a cube of tissue containing a "diverse repertoire of brain cells" which occur in the same ratios as in natural brain tissue. The researchers eventually hope to build a cubic millimetre of tissue which would comprise of around 100,000 cells and 900,000 million connections.
As well as being low-cost, the microfabrication technique is billed as being versatile, scalable, and generalisable, meaning that it could be adapted to create different types of tissue by replicating their particular structural, cellular and compositional features.
The team hopes that the research will lead to improvements in replacing damaged tissue in the body, based on a better understanding of organ connectivity. It could also one day allow enginneers to create personalised tissue that would enable them to determine the effectiveness of different drug treatments on an individual.
Image: Shutterstock
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
