Organoids are three-dimensional “mini-organs” grown from stem cells in vitro. Although organoids are not actually organs, they resemble key characteristics and features of their organ counterpart. There has been growing interest in organoids due to their potential for improved drug screening and studying fundamental biology. This project focuses on growing cerebral organoids using electrophoretic bioreactors to improve oxygen and nutrient transport into the organoids. Currently, cerebral organoids are limited in size and features. The maximum size of cerebral organoids is currently 4 mm and can be achieved by growing the organoids in a spinning bioreactor. By developing and building an electrophoretic bioreactor, the goal is to grow larger organoids with more mature features.

I was previously a UROP in Professor Allan Myerson’s lab involved in conducting various analytical tests to determine how crystal properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients affect drug solubility and dissociation. I am excited to take the skills I learned and apply it to this project because cerebral organoids may allow us to learn undiscovered secrets of brain diseases and cognitive disorders.