#immunofluorescence

Flow State

Cells and tissues grown in the lab can be a bit like a bathtub in a showroom: a fair representation, but of limited use until they’re properly plumbed in. A new development aims to solve this with a platform to grow human blood vessel networks, connected to tiny pumps (dubbed Vascularized In Vitro Organ Systems or VIVOS), which provide lab-grown tissues with a more realistic approximation of vascular flow. The vessels can integrate with a broad range of lab-grown mini organs including lung and cerebral organoids (pictured, brain cells in green and yellow, vascular network labelled red). They allow direct study of how blood flow impacts cells, and the team observed how mechanical forces in the flow cause changes in lining cells that result in vessel networks reshaping. The researchers also modelled vascular malformation in a condition called hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia, illustrating its potential for direct disease investigations as well as supporting more realistic lab-grown environments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Tiger H.Z. Jian and colleagues

Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Published in bioRxiv, March 2026 (not peer reviewed)

Making Eye Contact

Vision begins at the eye's retina – activated by light, electrical signals from the retina travel along neurons via the optic nerve to the brain where they're processed into 'sight'. As this system develops, the neurons don't land randomly in the brain, they follow a closely-regulated pattern reflecting the point of origin in the retina – mapping to the brain in a process called retinotopy. Here, in fruit flies researchers uncover the fine details, involving molecular gradients and adhesive forces, that control the preservation of the eye pattern as the neurons' projections (axons) establish in the brain

Image made using Leica Microsystems microscopy

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Melinda Kehribar and colleagues

Division of Neurobiology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Current Biology, February 2026

Live Wiring

Millennia of evolution have honed the intricate pattern of nerves and neurons throughout the body. But if neurons grow in an entirely novel living structure, can they still organise into functional tissue and influence behaviour? This fundamental question about neural flexibility is being addressed by researchers interested in building living machines: tissue-based robots, research organoids, and engineered biological devices in search and service of novel treatments and better health for all. A team developed tiny living ‘biobots’ from frog embryo tissue, and implanted neural precursor cells (pictured, coloured blue to yellow according to depth within the bot; complete view, left, and with some detail stripped back to reveal neuron-like fibres, right). The implanted cells matured into neurons, extended projections through the bot, and were associated with changes in shape, movement, gene expression, and drug responses, offering clues to how neural tissue might organise and function inside engineered living systems.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Haleh Fotowat and colleagues

Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Advanced Science, February 2026

All Growing Well

The interest in manipulating and analysing neurons grown from stem cells in the lab is wide-reaching – from early normal brain development to understanding and treating neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Described in this paper is a new approach for cultivating neurons: in multi-well plates. Each plastic plate is a uniform array of 384 tiny wells into which cells and nutrient liquid, and to which potential treatment drugs or disruptors, are added. This high-throughput format means a multitude of cultured cells can be rapidly closely monitored dividing, differentiating or dying

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Mark van der Kroeg and colleagues

Department of Psychiatry, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), March 2026

Eating Rubbish

A well-known pathological hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease is the build-up within the brain of protein plaques – like the one pictured (coloured blue). Since these plaques are considered to contribute to the memory loss and cognitive decline associated with the disease, researchers are investigating various ways to promote their removal. One recent idea is treatment with a fatty compound called N-oleoyl-leucine (OLE) – based on the finding that humans with unusually low levels of the OLE-producing enzyme PM20D1 are more prone to developing Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers treated mice daily (via their drinking water) for three months with OLE and found that these mice had significantly better memory performance when compared with control mice. OLE seems to prompt the brain’s microglia (coloured red) into gobbling up plaques. In the test mice, microglial activity was ramped up, the cells homed in on plaques, and plaque numbers were consequently diminished.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Victoria Pozzi-Ruiz and colleagues

Laboratory of Functional Epi-Genomics of Aging and Alzheimer’s disease, Instituto de Neurociencias, Universidad Miguel Hernández-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (UMH-CSIC), Alicante, Spain

Image originally published as 'Credit must be given to the creator' equating to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0))

Research published in Cell Death & Disease, April 2026

Lasting Memories

Neuroscientists have a reasonable understanding of how mammals initially learn and remember things. However, far less is understood about how memories are maintained long-term – in some cases, for a whole lifetime. Most studies into long-term memory have focused on the neurons – the information transmitters of the brain. But recent evidence suggests astrocytes (coloured yellow in this section of mouse brain) – traditionally considered the brain’s support cells – are in fact crucial for ingraining memories. Investigations into the structural support protein ankyrin-2, which has been linked to intellectual disability, revealed that while its deletion from mouse neurons had little or no effect on memory, its deletion from astrocytes did. Mice whose astrocytes lack the protein had significantly impaired recall of a long-term memory (a fear-conditioned response) than did control animals. It’s thought that the protein, in its structural capacity, stabilises established neural circuits to make some experiences unforgettable.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Hayoung Kim (김하영), Jiwoon Lim (임지운) and Jooyoung Kim (김주영), and colleagues

Center for Memory and Glioscience, Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Daejeon, Republic of Korea

Image originally published as 'Attribution Required' – hence here with as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in Nature Communications, July 2026

Forced into Life

Experiments on cells in the lab can require growing them in a more life-like 3D configuration, such as on 'scaffolds', rather than as a monolayer on the bottom of a Petri dish. Now, this study shows that subjecting sensory neurons and glial cells to sound-driven hydrodynamic forces in their growth medium causes them to assemble, organise and interact as in a dorsal root ganglion with functional fidelity without the need for scaffolds

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Junxuan Ma and colleagues

AO Research Institute Davos, Davos, Switzerland

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Cell Biomaterials, May 2026