[{"command":"openDialog","selector":"#drupal-modal","settings":null,"data":"\u003Cdiv id=\u0022republish_modal_form\u0022\u003E\u003Cform class=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form ecl-form\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 action=\u0022\/en\/article\/modal\/6890\u0022 method=\u0022post\u0022 id=\u0022modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 accept-charset=\u0022UTF-8\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHorizon articles can be republished for free under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EYou must give appropriate credit. We ask you to do this by:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 1) Using the original journalist\u0027s byline\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 2) Linking back to our original story\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n 3) Using the following text in the footer: This article was originally published in \u003Ca href=\u0027#\u0027\u003EHorizon, the EU Research and Innovation magazine\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003ESee our full republication guidelines \u003Ca href=\u0027\/horizon-magazine\/republish-our-stories\u0027\u003Ehere\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cp\u003EHTML for this article, including the attribution and page view counter, is below:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\u0022js-form-item form-item js-form-type-textarea form-item-body-content js-form-item-body-content ecl-form-group ecl-form-group--text-area form-no-label ecl-u-mv-m\u0022\u003E\n \n\u003Cdiv\u003E\n \u003Ctextarea data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 aria-describedby=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 id=\u0022edit-body-content\u0022 name=\u0022body_content\u0022 rows=\u00225\u0022 cols=\u002260\u0022 class=\u0022form-textarea ecl-text-area\u0022\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EMini-brains offer hope in search for new drugs for brain disorders\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMost new drugs are developed and tested using mice as models. However, with brain disorders such as Alzheimer\u2019s, the animals never have the full condition and instead only show some of the brain abnormalities seen in human patients. This means that while drugs can clear some signs of disease in mouse brains, they later fail to cure human patients with the full condition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We are very good at identifying compounds that cure disease in animal models,\u0027 said Professor Jurgen Knoblich, a molecular biologist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, in Vienna. \u2018The problem arises when we want to translate this into humans.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERecent studies have shown that the brain cells we use for memory, problem solving and language arise from a cell type that does not exist in mice. \u2018The brain is the one organ that is most different between humans and mice,\u2019 said Prof. Knoblich. \u2018That is why being able to test drugs directly in human model systems would be an incredible step forward.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPharmaceutical companies have lost hundreds of millions by investing in drugs for brain disorders that showed promise in animals but later failed in human patients. This high failure rate has led to the average cost of bringing a new drug to market to more than $1 billion (\u20ac850 million), Prof. Knoblich told the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) in Toulouse, France, earlier this month.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMini-brains\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe is particularly interested in epilepsy and microcephaly \u2013 a brain development disorder which leads to babies being born with small heads. His lab has developed an alternative way to these diseases \u2013 by generating mini human brains.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. Knoblich grows these mini-brains, also known as brain organoids, using skin cells taken from patients with epilepsy and microcephaly, which are tweaked so that they revert to an embryo-like state. He then coaxes these so they develop into brain cells in a dish.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cfigure role=\u0022group\u0022 class=\u0022@alignleft@\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cimg alt=\u0022By growing brain tissue samples that have the same DNA mutations as people with diseases such as Alzheimer\u0027s or epilepsy, researchers can test the impact of treatments on specific conditions. Image credit - Prof. Knoblich\u0022 height=\u0022531\u0022 src=\u0022https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/image005.jpg\u0022 title=\u0022By growing brain tissue samples that have the same DNA mutations as people with diseases such as Alzheimer\u0027s or epilepsy, researchers can test the impact of treatments on specific conditions. Image credit - Prof. Knoblich\u0022 width=\u00221346\u0022\u003E\n\u003Cfigcaption class=\u0022tw-italic tw-mb-4\u0022\u003EBy growing brain tissue samples that have the same DNA mutations as people with diseases such as Alzheimer\u0027s or epilepsy, researchers can test the impact of treatments on specific conditions. Image credit - Prof. Knoblich\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\n\u003C\/figure\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe resulting brain tissue shares the same DNA and disease-causing mutations as the patient. The mini-brains even show signs of their disease, such as reduced brain tissue in microcephaly. Dozens of the white mini-brain clumps fit inside a single growth plate that Prof. Knoblich can hold in the palm of his hand.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018We were stunned by how similar (the) events in these brain organoids were to what is known to happen in a (human) embryo brain,\u2019 said Prof. Knoblich. \u2018The mini-brains have an architecture that resembles an embryo brain, though the structure is quite jumbled up.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese tiny lab-grown organoids offer a new way of testing drugs on brain tissue that is similar to that found in a living patient.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018A pharmaceutical company might be able to grow thousands of these organoids and then test a lot of compounds in them,\u2019 said Prof Knoblich.\u0026nbsp; \u2018This is three-dimensional human tissue, with human physiology.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETroublesome\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe warned, however, that the brain organoids, as he prefers to call them, are not like adult brains, but rather pieces of brain tissue. The mini-brains cannot perceive or think or do anything that resembles consciousness, but they could show us the way to cure troublesome and common brain disorders.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cblockquote class=\u0022tw-text-center tw-text-blue tw-font-bold tw-text-2xl lg:tw-w-1\/2 tw-border-2 tw-border-blue tw-p-12 tw-my-8 lg:tw-m-12 lg:tw--ml-16 tw-float-left\u0022\u003E\n \u003Cspan class=\u0022tw-text-5xl tw-rotate-180\u0022\u003E\u201c\u003C\/span\u003E\n \u003Cp class=\u0022tw-font-serif tw-italic\u0022\u003E\u0026#039;A pharmaceutical company might be able to grow thousands of these organoids and then test a lot of compounds in them.\u0026#039;\u003C\/p\u003E\n \u003Cfooter\u003E\n \u003Ccite class=\u0022tw-not-italic tw-font-normal tw-text-sm tw-text-black\u0022\u003EProfessor Jurgen Knoblich, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria\u003C\/cite\u003E\n \u003C\/footer\u003E\n\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne disease that could stand to benefit from such an approach is Alzheimer\u2019s. Despite hundreds of potential treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s disease being tested in clinical trials, there are still few successful drugs against this devastating condition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy allowing drug companies to see the effect of their compounds directly on human tissue, laboratory-grown mini-brains promise to greatly speed up the search for new treatments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EScientists working on a project called STEMMAD are using mini-brains to research Alzheimer\u2019s, as well as Parkinson\u2019s disease and frontemporal dementia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey are producing the mini-brains in two ways. One, similar to Prof. Knoblich\u2019s work, is to use skin cells from a patient with a certain condition to grow brain tissue with the DNA mutation that carries the disease. They have also used gene editing to fix these mutations, meaning they can produce tissues with and without the disease in order to compare the samples.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe other is to grow mini-brains from anonymous healthy people and then edit in the disease. The advantage of this method is that it avoids some of the ethical and data protection issues that arise when dealing with specific patients, and more easily allows the mini-brains to be used by pharmaceutical companies for research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Poul Hyttel, a stem cell scientist at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, and coordinator of the STEMMAD project, said: \u2018The companies will be able to offer the biomedical industry different brain cell lines that they could test different compounds on and see how they affect the disease. We hope these human neurons will serve as a much better model than the rodent models.\u2019\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMutations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlready, the project has tested a number of drugs on two-dimensional and three-dimensional mini-brains grown in this way that carry mutations linked to Alzheimer\u2019s. These results are expected to be published later this year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProf. Knoblich believes developing cerebral organoids could help to drive down the cost of drug development and have major impacts on health research in general.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018The cost of pharmaceutical research has gone up exponentially and has led many big pharma companies about five to 10 years ago to shut down their neuroscience programs completely,\u2019 he said. \u2018We should think about what that means for human health.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe now hopes to grow brain tissue that will help give researchers a greater insight into common psychiatric disorders such as epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u2018I\u2019m convinced we are going to see a complete revolution that might actually end in a situation where biology and medicine are no longer separate disciplines,\u2019 added Prof. Knoblich. \u2018There is hope for new drugs and for new treatments.\u2019\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThe research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/bit.ly\/newsalertsignup\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022 rel=\u0022noopener noreferrer\u0022\u003E\u003Cimg src=\u0022https:\/\/horizon-magazine.eu\/research-and-innovation\/sites\/default\/files\/hm\/news-alert-final.jpg\u0022 alt width=\u0022983\u0022 height=\u0022222\u0022\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/textarea\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E\n\n \u003Cdiv id=\u0022edit-body-content--description\u0022 class=\u0022ecl-help-block description\u0022\u003E\n Please copy the above code and embed it onto your website to republish.\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n \u003C\/div\u003E\n\u003Cinput autocomplete=\u0022off\u0022 data-drupal-selector=\u0022form-xdgfg8i86ox2i9rxtyj0-cmlon2gvylsqygwgxdtzk4\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_build_id\u0022 value=\u0022form-XDgFg8I86ox2i9RxtYj0_cMLON2gvYLSQYgwgxdtzk4\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003Cinput data-drupal-selector=\u0022edit-modal-form-example-modal-form\u0022 type=\u0022hidden\u0022 name=\u0022form_id\u0022 value=\u0022modal_form_example_modal_form\u0022 \/\u003E\n\u003C\/form\u003E\n\u003C\/div\u003E","dialogOptions":{"width":"800","modal":true,"title":"Republish this content"}}]