Nash Family Department of Neuroscience

This image shows an in vitro multi-cellular integrated brain (miBrain), which is a human stem cell-derived 3D model of brain tissue composed of 6 specialized brain cell types including neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, endothelial cells and more, encapsulated together into gel. This particular miBrain was also seeded with a stem cell-derived blood-brain barrier (BBB) cell layer underneath. Each of these specialized neuronal cell types that make up the miBrain and BBB were differentiated from the same human induced pluripotent stem cell line!

The miBrain + BBB model has the ability to recapitulate physiological conditions of disease with great accuracy. This miBrain and BBB were grown for 6 weeks together in 3D.

Blue represents nuclei, yellow represents neurons, red represents brain endothelial cells of the BBB, and green represents ETV2 gene expression of the endothelial cells within the BBB.