High School Student Breeds Mini Brains in a Mini-Bio Reactor

According to recent reports, a high school student created a device that can culture mini brains that appear similar to brain neurons of a human. This device is like a small bioreactor where cells can be grown by feeding it nutrients and maintaining ideal body temperature for its growth.

Song said that he was shocked at this scientific breakthrough made by Hadiono and he said, "We did not think that even a biotechnology graduate student could make this into a reality." The mini-bioreactor invented by the high school student is undeniably more efficient than the traditional ones.

The greatest advantage, as per reports, is that it can hold more than two-folds of the min-brain. Which gives it a certain edge above the conventional bioreactors. They call it SpinΩ and it roughly costs about $400 each, while the traditional ones can cost up to $2000 each. Even though SpinΩ has a tiny structure, it can still breed a mini-brain in three months that can last up to six months.

The increased productivity of SpinΩ in producing mini-brains is one of its most striking features. This will allow the pharmaceutical drugs to be tested for neurological conditions as they can be experimented at once to assess the effects of the drugs on these mini-brains.

Song and his team has already filed for a provisional patent for the invention to protect the idea from being replicated. For now, his team is using SpinΩ in their lab at John Hopkins University in Baltimore to study the impact of Zika virus on a developing brain. The researchers shared how the virus can cause microcephaly. The neural stems cells in the brain are impacted by ZIka virus that causes the thinning of brain structure, starting in the fourth month of brain development.