ABOVE: These endothelial brain cells (blue) have been stained for ZO1 (red), a tight junction protein that defines the blood-brain barrier.
ALISA MORSS CLYNE
In 2015, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke released a report stating that more than 600 neurological conditions—including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and motor neuron disease, among others—affect an estimated 50 million Americans, a number that is growing each year. Many of these diseases share a common feature in the degradation of the blood-brain barrier (BBB), the cloak of endothelial cells that disposes of the brain’s waste while also providing necessary nutrients.
To better understand these diseases and to develop new ways to treat them, scientists rely on increasingly sophisticated cellular models that attempt to mimic the full complexity of the BBB. The advent of hydrogels, microfluidics, and so-called organs on a chip all rely on stable cell lines to build a useful ...
