Dr. Sergiu Pașca is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Bonnie Uytengsu and Family Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program. His lab has pioneered and applied neural organoid and assembloid technologies to make discoveries in fundamental and clinical neuroscience. He talks about the response to his viral TED Talk and the importance of names for nervous system models. He also discusses CRISPR screening in assembloids to study autism, transplanting cortical organoids into rats, and biocompatible polymers for neural organoids.

Monkey Blastoids – Scientists generated monkey blastoids from ESCs and transferred them into surrogates to trigger pregnancies.

Clonal Hematopoiesis and Chronic Liver Disease – Researchers used whole-exome sequencing data to study the association between clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential and chronic liver disease.

Cardiomyocyte Cell Therapy – Gene editing prevents arrhythmias from cell-based therapy for myocardial infarction.

Islet Transplantation Without Immunosuppression – Scientists used CRISPR to edit primary human pancreatic islet cells, making them immune-evasive.

Photo Reference: Courtesy of Dr. Sergiu Pașca

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