• Featuring Sergiu P. Pasca, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Stanford Brain Organogenesis Program, Stanford University
• In Discussion with John H. Evans, Co-Director of the UC San Diego Institute for Practical Ethics

Components of a human brain can now be built and either kept in a dish or implanted in non-human animals, with the goal of producing models for research on human neurological disease. This technology has developed extremely rapidly, with the model more closely emulating the human brain: starting with stem cells being developed into what are called “human brain organoids,” which are four-millimeter balls of human brain tissue from one location of the brain.  

Now we have “assembloids,” which are combinations of connected organoids from different parts of the human brain. While this research area holds great promise for understanding human disease, it is also ethically controversial.

In this special talk, Sergiu Pasca, world-wide leader in these technologies, will bring us up to date on the latest science. John Evans, who previously served on an ethics commission concerning organoids and assembloids, will provide short comments. The keynote will be followed by a conversation between Evans and Pasca, and we will then open the floor for questions from the audience.

About Sergiu P. Pasca

Sergiu P. Pasca is the Kenneth T. Norris Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the director of the Brain Organogenesis Program at Stanford University. He is the recipient of over 20 prestigious awards including, most recently, the National Institute of Mental Health MERIT Award. Pasca’s lab was the first to develop assembloids. He also successfully integrated human brain organoids into rats and developed a treatment for Timothy syndrome. Pasca has been a leader of the scientific community in creating a broader ethical debate about these technologies.