Stem Cell Stars Seminar - Understanding the human brain: from embryos to organoids and back again with Paola Arlotta

Talk Title: "Understanding the human brain: from embryos to organoids and back again"

When: 04 December 2024 | 15:00 - 16:00 + mingle

Where: Segerfalksalen, BMC A10

Host: Principal Investigator Malin Parmar

Following the lecture, take the opportunity to mingle and connect with colleagues and fellow researchers over refreshments at our post-seminar gathering. This is a wonderful opportunity to expand your professional network and share ideas in a relaxed setting. 

All are welcome, and no registration is required!

About the Speaker:

Paola Arlotta

• Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University
• Chair, Harvard Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology
• Associate Member, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute
• Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lund Stem Cell Center, Lund University

The function of the brain relies on the integration into functional circuits of an outstanding diversity of cell types. Generation and maintenance of cell diversity, correct wiring into neural circuits, and orchestrated interaction of neurons and glia are critical, and when disrupted lead to neurological disease.

Focusing on the developing cerebral cortex, the Arlotta lab has had a long-standing interest in discovering the mechanistic principles that govern the establishment and maintenance of cellular diversity and its integration into working networks that subserve cortical function. While mice are instrumental for this basic work, the cortex has diverged dramatically in primates, and there is limited knowledge of development of the human cortex. Motivated by understanding how our own cortex develops and how human neurodevelopmental disease emerges, the lab has built on their basic program in the mouse to instruct, validate and study human cortical development in vitro, within 3D cortical organoids of unprecedented complexity and reproducibility.

Collectively, the Arlotta lab research program explores the interface between development and engineering of the neocortex, to gain fundamental understanding of both the principles that govern normal cortical development and of previously-inaccessible mechanisms of human neurodevelopmental disease.

• Learn more about the Arlotta Lab