Functional, brain-like tissue has been grown for the first time without using any animal-derived materials, a development that opens the door to more controlled and humane neurological drug testing.
The new material, described in the Advanced Functional Materials journal, functions as a scaffold on which to grow donor brain cells and could be used to model traumatic brain injuries, strokes, or neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.
Current brain tissue platforms often rely on animal-derived biological coatings, which are poorly defined and hinder reliable testing.
“One of the drawbacks of most brain tissue platforms is that they utilise biological coatings to help living cells thrive. These animal-derived coatings are poorly defined, which makes it difficult to recreate their exact composition for reliable testing,” said Iman Noshadi, a UCR associate professor of bioengineering who led the team.
Animal brains not needed
This new platform could reduce, and in some cases eliminate, the need for animal brains in research, aligning with US FDA efforts to phase out animal testing requirements.
The scaffold is composed primarily of polyethylene glycol (PEG), a common polymer. By reshaping the normally inert PEG into a “maze of textured, interconnected pores,” the team created a matrix that cells recognise and colonise, using it to build functional neural networks. The pores allow oxygen and nutrients to circulate, “essentially feeding the donated stem cells”.
“Since the engineered scaffold is stable, it permits longer-term studies,” said Prince David Okoro, the study’s lead author. “That’s especially important as mature brain cells are more reflective of real tissue function when investigating relevant diseases or traumas”.
The material is currently only two millimetres wide, and the team is working to scale the model. The group’s long-term goal is to develop a suite of interconnected organ-level cultures.
“An interconnected system would let us see how different tissues respond to the same treatment and how a problem in one organ may influence another. It is a step toward understanding human biology and disease in a more integrated way,” Noshadi said.
