Dr Maria Di Biase has created a ‘brain bank’ of schizophrenia: blobs of brain cells from 100 patients, growing in the lab.  She’s using these brain organoids to develop urgently needed new approaches to diagnosis and treatment. Schizophrenia affects about one in 300 people worldwide. It usually manifests in adolescence. People with schizophrenia lose an…

Waking up brain stem cells at the right time could one day improve cognition and fight neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, according to Dr Lachlan Harris, a researcher at QIMR Berghofer in Brisbane Right now, most of the stem cells in your brain have been hibernating for months or years. Without periods of this sleep-like state,…

Dr Rhiannon Werder is growing ‘mini-lungs in a dish’ that mimic the complexity and function of lungs in living people. The Team Leader at Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) has already used stem cell-derived lung cells to create models of human genetic diseases, like cystic fibrosis, and acquired lung diseases and infections, such as the…