Single Brain Model from Multiple Donors’ Cells

Image credit: Michal Jarmoluk via Pixabay

In an advance which could uncover why the brain’s response to drugs can differ between individuals, Harvard University researchers have grown 3D neural models combining a range of cell types derived from multiple people.

Published recently in Nature, the world-first innovation mixes cells from up to five human donors to produce what its creators have named “Chimeroids” – thereby representing far greater diversity of human genetics within one model, to be used across a range of research applications.

“Here we present human brain Chimeroids, a highly reproducible, multidonor human brain cortical organoid model generated by the co-development of cells from a panel of individual donors in a single organoid,” said the authors in the article’s abstract.

“Our results suggest that human genetic background may be an important mediator of neurotoxin susceptibility and introduce Chimeroids as a scalable system for high-throughput investigation of interindividual variation in processes of brain development and disease.”

Read about this pioneering research via Nature, or visit this story from Nature for a summary.