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Stem Cells, Brain Organoids & Neurodevelopmental Disorders - The Park Lab at Yale School of Medicine

May 13, 2026

Transcript

  • 00:05Full brain is one of
  • 00:06the most developed brain region.
  • 00:08It regulate and control the
  • 00:11high human function like
  • 00:14decision making and cognition.
  • 00:16So it's very important and
  • 00:18also
  • 00:19the abnormal function in the
  • 00:21forebrain is associated with neuropsychiatric
  • 00:24neurodevelopment disorder. So that's the
  • 00:26reason is the main kind
  • 00:28of focus of our research.
  • 00:32The major research
  • 00:34project in my lab is
  • 00:36to study human brain development
  • 00:38and disorders.
  • 00:39So we use a human
  • 00:41brain organoid as a major
  • 00:42model system to study those.
  • 00:48We start with the human
  • 00:49pluripotent stem cell, like embryonic
  • 00:52stem cell and iPS cells.
  • 00:53So we use a growth
  • 00:55factors and small molecules and
  • 00:58specialized medium to differentiate this
  • 00:59stem cell into
  • 01:12the the orbital shaker
  • 01:14that continuously
  • 01:15move this organoid that have
  • 01:17the delivery of a nutrient
  • 01:19and oxygen into the organoid
  • 01:21for them to grow in
  • 01:22three d structure.
  • 01:24We start with the immuno
  • 01:26staining to look at the
  • 01:27structure,
  • 01:28and we perform the single
  • 01:29cell RNA seq and single
  • 01:31cell special transcriptome to look
  • 01:33at the development of program
  • 01:35of the brain organoid.
  • 01:36And of course, to confirm
  • 01:38the neuron is really the
  • 01:40function of the neuron, which
  • 01:41is, due to physiological
  • 01:43approach such as calcium imaging
  • 01:45or the MEA
  • 01:47or patch clamp.
  • 01:51So my background actually look
  • 01:53from the stem cell. And
  • 01:55from the beginning, like, twenty,
  • 01:56twenty five years ago when
  • 01:57I studied stem cell, especially
  • 01:59pluripotent stem cell, it was
  • 02:01fascinating me that they can
  • 02:03differentiate into
  • 02:04any cell type in our
  • 02:06body including neuron.
  • 02:08And now we can construct
  • 02:10the human brain in
  • 02:11vitro.
  • 02:13And I hope that in
  • 02:14future,
  • 02:15we could develop some kind
  • 02:16of a therapeutics
  • 02:18in using this brain organoid
  • 02:20as a platform to help
  • 02:22the people with a brain
  • 02:23disorder.