When Alexander Fleming left a petri dish out in the air, it led to his famous discovery of antibiotics. It was pretty much the same thing for Madeline Lancaster when she left stem cells in a shaker — it led to the discovery of a new model for neuroscience: brain organoids.
These blobs of tissue, grown from human stem cells, resemble some of the essential parts of the human brain. Although they are as small as apple seeds, brain organoids may hold the key to understanding one of life’s great mysteries: the human brain.
Growing them, however, raises some ethical questions.
Check out JSTOR Daily for more details.
(Image Credit: Vaccarino Lab, Yale University/ NIH/ Flickr)