Engineering organoids as cerebral disease models.

Cerebral organoids pioneered in replicating complex brain tissue architectures in vitro, offering a vast potential for human disease modeling. They enable the in vitro study of human physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms of various neurological diseases and disorders. The trajectory of technological advancements in brain organoid generation and engineering over the past decade indicates that the technology might, in the future, mature into indispensable solutions at the horizon of personalized and regenerative medicine.

Genetically-stable engineered optogenetic gene switches modulate spatial cell morphogenesis in two- and three-dimensional tissue cultures.

Recent advances in tissue engineering have been remarkable, yet the precise control of cellular behavior in 2D and 3D cultures remains challenging. One approach to address this limitation is to genomically engineer optogenetic control of cellular processes into tissues using gene switches that can operate with only a few genomic copies. Here, we implement blue and red light-responsive gene switches to engineer genomically stable two- and three-dimensional mammalian tissue models.

Image-guided optogenetic spatiotemporal tissue patterning using μPatternScope.

In the field of tissue engineering, achieving precise spatiotemporal control over engineered cells is critical for sculpting functional 2D cell cultures into intricate morphological shapes. In this study, we engineer light-responsive mammalian cells and target them with dynamic light patterns to realize 2D cell culture patterning control. To achieve this, we developed μPatternScope (μPS), a modular framework for software-controlled projection of high-resolution light patterns onto microscope samples.