Searching for a Cure for Blindness

There are a number of diseases that can lead to blindness. But, a researcher at UC San Diego thinks there might be one way to cure them all. It’s called endogenous regeneration. Think of a lizard re-growing a lost tail. Zebrafish can do something similar with retinal tissue. Researcher Karl Wahlin says there is evidence humans have the potential to do the same, if scientists can figure out how to activate the process.

Wahlin’s work isn’t limited to teaching the body to repair itself. He’s also using stem cells to study different eye diseases and search for cures. He works with what are known as retinal organoids – miniature retinal models grown in the lab. These can be made from stem cells of people with specific eye diseases so researchers can see how those diseases might develop in the womb, and which treatments might be effective against them.

Now, Wahlin is teaming up with Alysson Muotri from the UC San Diego Stem Cell program who uses brain organoids for similar research. The two have begun working together with the help of a bioengineer who builds 3D-printing machines that can incorporate stem cells. Learn how it all works in the latest piece from the Building the Brain Series.

Watch — Stem Cells and Curing Blindness – Karl Wahlin

Building the Brain With Alysson Muotri

Inside of each brain, there is the possibility to understand how trillions of neural connections come to sense the world, record memories, create an individual, and shape who you are and who you will become. Can we ever learn how this happens?

By using cortical organoids – self organized clusters of neurons generated by stem cells, that is what Alysson Muotri’s lab at the Sanford Consortium for regenerative medicine wants to learn.

Called “brain organoids” because they exhibit many of the characteristics of a developing brain they are asking what happens to build a brain? What happens to create a human mind, and who we are? How does this process become disordered, giving rise to conditions like autism, schizophrenia, epilepsy, and degeneration? And how can they find ways to intervene and rescue the mind from disorders, and even restore lost function?

Muotri’s lab and a host of collaborators in and out of UC San Diego are using a diverse array of methods and tools on these brain organoids, from researching the details of vision to how neurons connect and form networks, to engineering ways to help the organoids become more complex, to the differences between normal brains and brains with cognitive disorders, even to growing brain organoids in space to understand causes of autism and Alzheimer’s disease.

Join Alysson Muotri, Director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program as he takes you on a journey to visit the labs and collaborators who are exploring how a brain is built on Building the Brain.

Watch — Building The Brain With Alysson Muotri

Aicardi-Goutieres: A Rare Disorder, A Unique Look into the Brain

8232Using brains-in-a-dish (cortical organoids), the Muotri Lab at UC San Diego has developed a new treatment for Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome. This study not only identified the underlying mechanisms that drive AGS but has also led to surprising revelations about neuroinflammation. Learn how they repurposed HIV antiretroviral drugs to rescue mutated cells and what this research means for studying other neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.

Watch: Reconstructing the Brain in a Dish: Emergence of Neuroinflammation from Retrotransposons