Paola Arlotta seeks to understand the complex symphony of brain development in vitro by using organoid models.

Human prenatal development can be viewed as a program of genetic switches that turn on, in a highly regulated manner, at specific places and times. But a body of evidence is emerging that paints a less hardwired picture, one of responses to environmental challenges fostering changes early on that reverberate decades later, in the guise of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A symposium at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting, held in Philadelphia Oct. 3-7, addressed the fetal o

A gene essential for information storage in the brain engages an autoregulatory feedback loop to consolidate memory.

Scientists use virus-free gene therapy on patient-derived stem cells to repair spinal muscular atrophy in mice.

Single-cell genome analyses reveal the amount of mutations a human brain cell will collect from its fetal beginnings until death.

Researchers who work with materials such as fetal tissue and human embryonic stem cells are facing new restrictions, the latest in a long line of regulations, that could impede important advances.

To understand how memories are formed and maintained, neuroscientists travel far beyond the cell body in search of answers.

Researchers are inching ever closer to a treatment for the inherited neurodegenerative disorder Huntington's disease (HD). Following close on the heels of recent optimistic reports on fetal cell implants1,2 comes a report from Johns Hopkins University that sheds light on a possible mechanism of neuronal destruction in HD.3 The work reveals possible new drug targets. Legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie's fight with HD brought the disease into the public eye in the 1960s. Today, some 30,000 peopl

Researchers are using souped-up mass spectrometry to localize proteins within brain cells.

By bringing genetics into clinical medicine, the University of British Columbia medical geneticist helped to identify the gene mutations responsible for many rare diseases.