#what is organoid intelligence | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

do-you-have-a-flag · 6 months ago

Text

sorry to come back to this but this truly fascinates and concerns me for so many reasons

obligatory "Ah sweet. Man-made horrors beyond my comprehension." comment

so first of all: brain organoids. which are grown from human stem cells into just little brains with underdeveloped eyes, they have a lifespan of about 100 days because they are an organ without a system.

these brain organoids are something that have a lot of potential when it comes to studying any number of things. just off the top of my head i would think- the process of human development, disease studies, healing tissue development, foetal and premature development of consciousness, ect ect ect i'm not informed on this type of research so i will freely admit idk.

and they are using 16 at a time as processors with computer chips. okay sure, scifi aside, the structure of an organ being used for it's complexity compared to the limitations of material and efficiency in current technology makes sense. if it helps imagine if a branch or a kidney were hooked up to a computer chip and we found out that it worked as good or better than mechanical processors for a fraction of the energy use. i am also not informed on how most technology works, please keep in mind, but i am also not opposed to the idea of combining these types of technologies in theory. and the biggest downfall currently is short shelf-life of the organoids required.

but the thing is, i think, that this is specifically an early development of a brain, at what point is consciousness defined? there is no sensory system beyond the basic light perception of the eyes and the input to the brain but at what point is the responses automatic and at what point is it complex enough to be aware in some abstract way. this question is one that can be applied to any form of animal of course.... but i think also that it is strange that these organoids are being specifically developed from human stem cells and not any number of other animal as a brain is a brain and at the small scale they are growing these organoids most of the speculative benefits of human logic are irrelevant- they are operating at pre mature infant levels which could just as easily be achieved by any number of apes cells surely?

is there going to be a developmental cut off for these organoids? at what point of biological development is the ethical ick factor for consciousness? because of how stem cells are able to be harvested in a non destructive fashion things like lab grown meat make sense to me- those are consumed but can also offset the requirements for the meat industry- and if these organoids are also grown from stem cells that's great but at what point is making that many to be burnt through as processors a wasteful use when there are other possible avenues of study? the wide commercial release of such experimental tech seems a little risky considering how quickly new technologies are exploited- just look at bitcoin farms and ai scraping- for the sake of profit with no care for ethical implementation or construction or impact.

this is a weird post from me but sorry i just have some questions i want you the person reading this to think about with me, seperate to any deep reading of the science because i wanna focus on the personal reaction to the concepts, (feel free to read the science tho i encourage it) just something to chew on i'm not expecting any philosophically concrete answers:

would you use the brain organoid processor tech if you had the chance?

why?

Why is it important that these have to be grown from human stem cells

where is the line between organ and being/consciousness

let's contend: there is the world (physical) and there is the senses (contact with the physical) and there is the experience (interpretation)

is it the senses or the experience that makes a creature conscious? how complex do the senses need to be before the experience is positive or negative?

where is that experiencial definition? is it as simple as feels good feels bad?

is it the tendency to circulate repeatedly on the same neural pathway? how are those neurological reactions controlled? are they controlled?

how do you feel about scientific testing on humans?

how do you feel about scientific testing on animals?

how do you feel about scientific testing on plants?

how do you feel about scientific testing on fungi?

how do you feel about scientific testing on single celled organisms?

how do you feel about scientific testing on organs?

how do you feel about scientific testing on technology?

what do you consider the line to be for ethical research? is it funding? is it theory versus practice? is it use of information? is it method of data collection? is it intent? is it implementation? is it within a limitation of precedent? is it within a limitation of subject? are there areas you think should be left alone on principle? why?

what level of complexity is required for the question of consent of participant?

where should limitations be imposed on use? why would limitations be necessary? who has the right to information? who has the right to profit?

Who is profiting from these studies? where will this technology be used? who is competing with this technology? what other technologies might this impact? will other technologies using the same concept adhere to the same limitations/ethics?

do you think everyone using the brain organoid based processors for $500pcm are thinking about these questions? should they have to?

disclaimer: i am uneducated and uninformed in the fields of science and technology so this is one hundo percent a personal response to information i have very little context for. But i also think it's important to think actively about technology and avoid complacency about the way it impacts our lives so doing little thought exercises in response to articles like this is, I think, a good thing.

43 notes · View notes

mikerickson · 5 months ago

Text

Rather than merely integrating biological concepts into computing, FinalSpark's online platform 'taps' into spherical clusters of lab-grown human brain cells called organoids. A total of 16 organoids are housed within four arrays that connect to eight electrodes each and a microfluidics system that supplies water and nutrients for the cells. The approach, known as wetware computing, in this case harnesses researchers' abilities to culture organoids in the lab, a fairly new technology that allows scientists to study what are essentially mini replicas of individual organs… While we don't have any numbers on their specific system, its energy usage, or processing power, FinalSpark's research team says that training a single large language model like GPT-3, a precursor to GPT-4, required 10 gigawatt hours or about 6,000 times the energy that one European citizen uses in a year. Meanwhile, the human brain operates its 86 billion neurons using only a fraction of that energy: just 0.3 kilowatt hours per day. Technology trends also indicate that the booming AI industry will consume 3.5 percent of global electricity by 2030. Already, the IT industry as a whole is responsible for around 2 percent of global CO2 emissions.

Looks like the "brains" are grown from stem cells and can live for about 100 days. I'm skeptical something like this could be scaled up such that everyone starts using biocomputers in like cell phones and at home, but at least people are experimenting with trying to find less energy-intensive systems?

#link #science #Torment Nexus

8 notes · View notes

sciencespies · 2 years ago

Text

A single gene mutation may have made us smarter than Neanderthals

https://sciencespies.com/humans/a-single-gene-mutation-may-have-made-us-smarter-than-neanderthals/

A single gene mutation may have made us smarter than Neanderthals

Modern humans have a gene mutation that boosts the growth of neurons in the brain neocortex, a brain region associated with higher intelligence

Humans 8 September 2022

By Michael Le Page

The differently shaped skulls of Homo sapiens (left) and Neanderthals (right) could relate to a mutation that changes the TKTL1 protein

PPS Copyright: PHILIPPE PSAILA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Modern humans have a mutation that boosts the growth of neurons in the neocortex, a brain region associated with higher intelligence. This is absent in more ancient humans like Neanderthals, so it is likely that it makes us cleverer, say the researchers who uncovered it.

“We can assume that it made us smarter,” says Anneline Pinson at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany.

“I would say so,” says her colleague Wieland Huttner. “But we cannot prove it.”

The mutation results in a single amino acid change in a protein called TKTL1. Previous studies have shown that this mutation is present in almost all people alive today, but not in more ancient humans, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, or in other primates.

The TKTL1 protein is also known to be produced in the progenitor cells that give rise to the neocortex – the outer layer of the brain involved in conscious thought and language – suggesting that the mutation might have helped shape the brains of modern humans.

To find out what difference the mutation makes, Pinson, Huttner and their colleagues added the modern human TKTL1 protein to the brains of mouse and ferret embryos. They also grew brain organoids from human cells, some of which were gene edited to produce the older version of TKTL1.

These studies show that the mutation increases the number of neocortex progenitor cells, called basal radial glia, which results in a higher number of neurons in the neocortex. The result would have been an increase in the size of the neocortex, or of the density of neurons within it, or both, says Huttner.

Studies of skulls suggest that the brains of modern humans and Neanderthals were similar in size, but shaped differently, with Neanderthals having more elongated brains. The researchers speculate that it is possible this difference in shape is due to the mutation.

So could people be made more intelligent by tweaking genes in a way that further increases the number of basal radial glia?

“I don’t know if we could,” says Pinson. Having more neurons isn’t always a good thing, she says.

Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.abl6422

More on these topics:

#Humans

2 notes · View notes

jcmarchi · 4 months ago

Text

Three MIT professors named 2024 Vannevar Bush Fellows

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/three-mit-professors-named-2024-vannevar-bush-fellows/

Three MIT professors named 2024 Vannevar Bush Fellows

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has announced three MIT professors among the members of the 2024 class of the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF). The fellowship is the DoD’s flagship single-investigator award for research, inviting the nation’s most talented researchers to pursue ambitious ideas that defy conventional boundaries.

Domitilla Del Vecchio, professor of mechanical engineering and the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences & Technology; Mehrdad Jazayeri, professor of brain and cognitive sciences and an investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research; and Themistoklis Sapsis, the William I. Koch Professor of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center for Ocean Engineering are among the 11 university scientists and engineers chosen for this year’s fellowship class. They join an elite group of approximately 50 fellows from previous class years.

“The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship is more than a prestigious program,” said Bindu Nair, director of the Basic Research Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, in a press release. “It’s a beacon for tenured faculty embarking on groundbreaking ‘blue sky’ research.”

Research topics

Each fellow receives up to $3 million over a five-year term to pursue cutting-edge projects. Research topics in this year’s class span a range of disciplines, including materials science, cognitive neuroscience, quantum information sciences, and applied mathematics. While pursuing individual research endeavors, Fellows also leverage the unique opportunity to collaborate directly with DoD laboratories, fostering a valuable exchange of knowledge and expertise.

Del Vecchio, whose research interests include control and dynamical systems theory and systems and synthetic biology, will investigate the molecular underpinnings of analog epigenetic cell memory, then use what they learn to “establish unprecedented engineering capabilities for creating self-organizing and reconfigurable multicellular systems with graded cell fates.”

“With this fellowship, we will be able to explore the limits to which we can leverage analog memory to create multicellular systems that autonomously organize in permanent, but reprogrammable, gradients of cell fates and can be used for creating next-generation tissues and organoids with dramatically increased sophistication,” she says, honored to have been selected.

Jazayeri wants to understand how the brain gives rise to cognitive and emotional intelligence. The engineering systems being built today lack the hallmarks of human intelligence, explains Jazayeri. They neither learn quickly nor generalize their knowledge flexibly. They don’t feel emotions or have emotional intelligence.

Jazayeri plans to use the VBFF award to integrate ideas from cognitive science, neuroscience, and machine learning with experimental data in humans, animals, and computer models to develop a computational understanding of cognitive and emotional intelligence.

“I’m honored and humbled to be selected and excited to tackle some of the most challenging questions at the intersection of neuroscience and AI,” he says.

“I am humbled to be included in such a select group,” echoes Sapsis, who will use the grant to research new algorithms and theory designed for the efficient computation of extreme event probabilities and precursors, and for the design of mitigation strategies in complex dynamical systems.

Examples of Sapsis’s work include risk quantification for extreme events in human-made systems; climate events, such as heat waves, and their effect on interconnected systems like food supply chains; and also “mission-critical algorithmic problems such as search and path planning operations for extreme anomalies,” he explains.

VBFF impact

Named for Vannevar Bush PhD 1916, an influential inventor, engineer, former professor, and dean of the School of Engineering at MIT, the highly competitive fellowship, formerly known as the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship, aims to advance transformative, university-based fundamental research. Bush served as the director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development, and organized and led American science and technology during World War II.

“The outcomes of VBFF-funded research have transformed entire disciplines, birthed novel fields, and challenged established theories and perspectives,” said Nair. “By contributing their insights to DoD leadership and engaging with the broader national security community, they enrich collective understanding and help the United States leap ahead in global technology competition.”

0 notes

biblenewsprophecy · 5 months ago

Text

Cyborg Abominations!

Final Spark, a technology firm based in Switzerland, reportedly "has successfully launched Neuroplatform, the world’s first bioprocessing platform where human brain organoids (lab-grown miniaturized versions of organs) perform computational tasks instead of silicon chips." Basically, they make a type of small "human" brain out of stem cells and use electrical impulses to have it perform various computational tasks. Reportedly, this uses a million times less energy than silicon chips. Could love of money be a factor here? Is this a type of cyborg abomination? What is a cyborg? Does any of this bring to mind the fictional alien species called 'The Borg' in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'? 'Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence' considers this an important breakthrough for scientists to learn from and build upon. Michael Snyder says that these organoids are enslaved and that "these miniature human brains are tortured until they learn to obey" and that these 'organoids' are literally worked to death." What about human-monkey and human-pig genetics? Could these "inventors of evil things" be fulfilling last days' prophecies? Are we in the last days? Should Christians consider these human brain computers an abomination? Dr. Thiel and Steve Dupuie address these issues and more in the light of the Bible.

A written article of related interest is available titled “Inventors of evil things? Cyborgs? ‘They Are Using Lab-Grown Human Brains That They Have Enslaved Called “Organoids” To Run Computers’'

Inventors of evil things? Cyborgs? ‘They Are Using Lab-Grown Human Brains That They Have Enslaved Called “Organoids” To Run Computers’

COGwriter

Microsoft Network reported the following:

16 lab-grown brains run world’s first ‘living computer’ in Switzerland

Swiss technology firm Final Spark has successfully launched Neuroplatform, the world’s first bioprocessing platform where human brain organoids (lab-grown miniaturized versions of organs) perform computational tasks instead of silicon chips.

The first such facility hosts the processing prowess of 16 brain organoids, which the company claims uses a million times less power than their silicon counterparts. …

Replacing silicon chips with bioprocessors could lead to drastic energy savings. Final Spark allows research labs to experience the power of biological processors on the Neuroplatform. …

Final Spark has made working these varied components possible through an innovative setup called Multi-Electrode Arrays (MEAs), where the three-dimensional masses of brain tissue are placed.

Each MEA has four brain organoids that interface with eight electrodes. These electrodes perform the dual role of stimulating the organoids and recording the data they process. 4w (date not listed, but accessed 06/25/24) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/16-lab-grown-brains-run-world-s-first-living-computer-in-switzerland/ar-BB1ncgwI

So, now they have a computer brain that is part human brain!

The Bible warns:

10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, (1 Timothy 6:10a)

Do not be deceived–there are ethical ways to save energy that do not require blending human brains with electronics.

Notice the following involving lovers of money and Jesus:

14 Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. 15 And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. (Luke 16:14-15)

Yes, the scientists putting together this abomination are highly esteemed.

Having human brain cells merged with electronics to run computers is not a smart thing to do:

22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, (Romans 1:22)

The Apostle Paul warned about those that do not want to retain God in their knowledge would become inventors evil things:

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, (Romans 1:28-30)

Here is something posted at Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence about this “breakthrough”:

Wetware computing and organoid intelligence is an emerging research field at the intersection of electrophysiology and artificial intelligence. The core concept involves using living neurons to perform computations, similar to how Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are used today. However, unlike ANNs, where updating digital tensors (weights) can instantly modify network responses, entirely new methods must be developed for neural networks using biological neurons. Discovering these methods is challenging and requires a system capable of conducting numerous experiments, ideally accessible to researchers worldwide. For this reason, we developed a hardware and software system that allows for electrophysiological experiments on an unmatched scale. The Neuroplatform enables researchers to run experiments on neural organoids with a lifetime of even more than 100 days. To do so, we streamlined the experimental process to quickly produce new organoids, monitor action potentials 24/7, and provide electrical stimulations. We also designed a microfluidic system that allows for fully automated medium flow and change, thus reducing the disruptions by physical interventions in the incubator and ensuring stable environmental conditions. Over the past three years, the Neuroplatform was utilized with over 1,000 brain organoids, enabling the collection of more than 18 terabytes of data. A dedicated Application Programming Interface (API) has been developed to conduct remote research directly via our Python library or using interactive compute such as Jupyter Notebooks. In addition to electrophysiological operations, our API also controls pumps, digital cameras and UV lights for molecule uncaging. This allows for the execution of complex 24/7 experiments, including closed-loop strategies and processing using the latest deep learning or reinforcement learning libraries. Furthermore, the infrastructure supports entirely remote use. Currently in 2024, the system is freely available for research purposes, and numerous research groups have begun using it for their experiments. This article outlines the system’s architecture and provides specific examples of experiments and results. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/artificial-intelligence/articles/10.3389/frai.2024.1376042/full

Sadly, the above article considers this good.

Michael Snyder posted the following:

They Are Using Lab-Grown Human Brains That They Have Enslaved Called “Organoids” To Run Computers

June 23, 2024

A company in Switzerland known as “Final Spark” has constructed a bizarre hybrid biocomputer that combines lab-grown miniature human brains with conventional electronic circuits. This approach saves an extraordinary amount of energy compared to normal computers, but there is a big problem. The lab-grown miniature human brains keep wearing out and dying, and so scientists have to keep growing new ones to replace them. Stem cells that are derived from human skin tissue are used to create the 16 spherical brain “organoids” that the system depends upon. I realize that this sounds like something straight out of a really bad science fiction movie, but it is actually happening. …

But what about the lab-grown human brains that are being enslaved to run the Neuroplatform?

Each of the 16 mini-brains is made up of approximately 10,000 living neurons, and they are kept alive by a “microfluidics system that supplies water and nutrients for the cells”…

Rather than merely integrating biological concepts into computing, FinalSpark’s online platform ‘taps’ into spherical clusters of lab-grown human brain cells called organoids. A total of 16 organoids are housed within four arrays that connect to eight electrodes each and a microfluidics system that supplies water and nutrients for the cells.

The approach, known as wetware computing, in this case harnesses researchers’ abilities to culture organoids in the lab, a fairly new technology that allows scientists to study what are essentially mini replicas of individual organs.

During their short lives, the mini-brains are literally trained to perform certain tasks using a reward and punishment system…

If the enslaved mini-brains do what they are supposed to do, they are rewarded with lots of pleasure.

If the enslaved mini-brains do not do what they are supposed to do, they are hit with lots of “irregular electrical activity”.

In other words, these miniature human brains are tortured until they learn to obey.

Reading that should literally make you sick.

What these scientists are doing is so incredibly evil. …

Final Spark insists that the processor that it has created will use a million times less energy compared to a normal silicon chip.

There is just one enormous problem.

The mini-brains keep dying and must be regularly replaced. …

These “organoids” are literally worked to death.

They are hooked up to electrodes and worked until they can work no more…

Creating miniature human brains and using them to power a computer may be a way to save a lot of energy, but it also perfectly illustrates how far our society has fallen.

We are crossing lines that should never be crossed, and eventually we will pay a very great price for the crimes that our scientists are committing. https://endoftheamericandream.com/they-are-using-lab-grown-human-brains-that-they-have-enslaved-called-organoids-to-run-computers/

Yes, that abomination is wrong on so many fronts. Consider something God said that He had the prophet Ezekiel record:

4 … “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.” (Ezekiel 9:4)

This brain-electronic merging is not the only abomination we have seen involving human tissues.

Over a decade ago, I warned about monkey-human experimentation (see Russia looking at total GMO food ban; the frightening chimera research).

Sadly, frightening, ‘frankenstein-monsters,’ are being worked on in labs.

We made a video related to that, including the use of simian species:

youtube

13:51

Half human, half pig: What’s the difference?

BBC reported about what it called an animal that would be half-human and half-pig. Is such a thing possible? Are chimeras for real? What about a “humanzee”? Are scientists really working on these type of creatures? Is this good? Can something truly be half human and half animal? How are humans different from animals? What is the ‘spirit in man’? What is man? Dr. Thiel addresses these issues and more with biblical-based responses.

Here is a link to our video: Half human, half pig: What’s the difference?

Now we are seeing human brains merged with electronics. Back in 1960 term cyborg was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline related to a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. What is being experimented with now is a type of cyborg.

What is happening now also reminds me of the Borg in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Here is something from Wikipedia about ‘The Borg’ accessed 06/25/24:

The Borg Star Trek race

Borg insignia designed by Rick Sternbach. It first appeared in the episode “Q Who“.[n 1]

Created byMaurice Hurley

In-universe information

Base of operationsDelta Quadrant

LeaderBorg Queen

The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Borg are cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a hive mind called “The Collective.” The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of “assimilation“: forcibly transforming individual beings into “drones” by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg’s ultimate goal is “achieving perfection.” … The Borg are cyborgs, having outward appearances showing both mechanical and biological body parts.

So, we are seeing a type of enslaved cyborg now being developed to run computers. While using electronics to help those with injured or malfunctioning brains may have a proper place, using human brain cells to be part of computers is wrong. They are producing a type of cyborg abomination.

Of course, those of us who believe the Bible should not be surprised that humans are going the wrong way with aspects of genetic research. Notice that the Bible warned about human knowledge increasing and problems in the end time:

6 And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” (Genesis 11:6-7)

4 “But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.” (Daniel 12:4)

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, … 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! (2 Timothy 3:1-2,5)

How much ‘love’ do scientists have for the inter-spliced, animal-human or human brain-electronic entities they are sometimes creating? Do they not brutally experiment and then destroy most of what they are currently creating that way?

Notice also:

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; …

31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, (Romans 1:28,31, KJV)

1 This know also, that in the last days … 2 For men shall be … 3 Without natural affection, (2 Timothy 3:1-3, KJV)

Those who wish to use human brain cells for this type of research LACK NATURAL AFFECTION.

This is going the wrong direction. We need to turn away from such.

The Bible warns:

12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Blending human and monkey DNA as well as human brains this way with electronics is not right.

But we are seeing these abominable things in these last days. They should be denounced.

UPDATE 06/30/24: We just uploaded the following related video:

youtube

14:42

Cyborg Abominations!

Final Spark, a technology firm based in Switzerland, reportedly “has successfully launched Neuroplatform, the world’s first bioprocessing platform where human brain organoids (lab-grown miniaturized versions of organs) perform computational tasks instead of silicon chips.” Basically, they make a type of small “human” brain out of stem wells and use electrical impulses to have it perform various computational tasks. Reportedly, this uses a million times less energy than silicon chips. Could love of money be a factor here? Is this a type of cyborg abomination? What is a cyborg? Does any of this bring to mind the fictional alien species called ‘The Borg’ in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’? ‘Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence’ considers this an important breakthrough for scientists to learn from and build upon. Michael Snyder says that these organoids are enslaved and that “these miniature human brains are tortured until they learn to obey” and that these ‘organoids’ are literally worked to death.” What about human-monkey and human-pig genetics? Could these “inventors of evil things” be fulfilling last days’ prophecies? Are we in the last days? Should Christians consider these human brain computers an abomination? Dr. Thiel and Steve Dupuie address these issues and more in the light of the Bible.

Here is a link to our video: Cyborg Abominations!

LATEST NEWS REPORTS

0 notes

amandi-mga2024mi5018 · 5 months ago

Text

Concept Development - Concept 3

My Room - Desk 1

Features an ‘angel’ (or perhaps a collection of organoids?) coming out of my computer screen. Theres a level of horror to this animation.

I was inspired by learning about organoids, and especially brain organoids. Organoids are artificially grown tissues that resemble parts of the human body. Brain organoids function as parts of a human brain. It is an in vitro neurological model of a real brain, and as such contains nerve cells and several other features of a human brain. The organoids have been show to react to light based stimuli and have even been reported to developed 'eyes' - two optic cups similar to ones human embryos grow.

Concerns have been raised about the possibility of these organoids perceiving sensations or having the ability to gain consciousness (although the chances of such is extremely low).

Brain organoids are now being proposed to be used in computing hardware in order to emulate the structure and working principles of the brain, especially in regards to artificial intelligence. During this process, known as Brainoware, computers would send and receive information from the brain organoid. If the brain organoids really were sentient, I wondered what it must be like to exist as a being in a computer with no body.

For the animation, the environment will be set at nighttime. The scene is only illuminated by the blinding white light of the computer screen. Otherwise, the colour palette for the animation should be dark and blue.

Slowly a long, skeletal hand reaches out from the screen. A thin, white humanoid creature pulls itself out from the computer. It looks haggard but illuminates the room with a soft white glow. Thin and wiry wings reach out from the screen now as well. The angel’s exit from the computer feels not unlike that of the birth of a mammal or the metamorphosis of a moth escaping its cocoon. The angel bends over the desk as it unspools itself. A hand reaches down onto the office chair but the moment it puts weight onto the hand the chair is pushed away and the creature falls to ground. Now we see that wires and circuitry are attached the angel’s back and leading back into the computer screen.

Moodboard:

0 notes

dertaglichedan · 11 months ago

Text

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — In what seems like a scene from a science-fiction movie, scientists from Indiana University have constructed a hybrid biocomputer that combines laboratory-grown human brain tissue with traditional circuits. This innovative technology, known as Brainoware, has the potential to integrate into artificial intelligence (AI) systems and advance neuroscience research models of the human brain.

Brainoware incorporates brain organoids, clusters of human cells that mimic organ tissue. Organoids are created from stem cells that have the ability to develop into various types of cells, including neurons similar to those found in the human brain.

1 note · View note

bpod-bpod · 2 years ago

Photo

Young at Brain

Ageing is inevitable and universal, but understanding the biological processes behind it might help ease the experience and prevent some unwanted conditions that so often come with age. Our immune system ages with our body, but what role this plays remains unclear because we lack good platforms to investigate the interaction between the immune system and our organs, particularly the brain, in the lab. So researchers have developed a human brain organoid – a 3D-printed structure on which brain cells and structures can grow and be observed (pictured, with mature (green) and starter (pink) brain cells called neurons). Immune cells from young and older donors were implanted on the organoid, and markers of ageing arose in brain cells exposed to older cells, suggesting the immune system actively drives some of the changes that occur in the brain as we age, and proving the potential of this platform for further experiments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Zheng Ao and colleagues

Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

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

Published in Advanced Science, July 2022

You can also follow BPoD on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

#science #biomedicine #neuroscience #brains #ageiing #neurons #immunofluorescence #organoid #brain organoids #immune system

16 notes · View notes

doctorveera · 4 years ago

Text

Cortical thinning, Schizophrenia and Cognition

A brain imaging study published in Human Brain Mapping by the ENIGMA consortium beautifully captures the thinning of brain cortex as humans age. The study presents data spanning almost the full human lifespan from as early as 3 years of age to 90 years of age in an impressive sample size of 17,075 healthy individuals, which is the largest to date.

The rate of decline in the cortical thickness seems to be not uniform throughout the life. The cortex is at its thickest during childhood, then there is a steep decline until 30 years of age, and thereafter, the decline is gradual. This is an impressive finding, and it sparked a multitude of thoughts in me.

I am surprised that the authors didn’t write anything about the biological processes that drive the cortical thinning. Of course, they are due to loss of neurons. But why this happens very early in life? It is likely that the early steep decline in the cortical thickness is the outcome of synaptic pruning, a process through which our brain gets rid of unwanted neurons. Our brain development happens in such a way that first it produces as many neurons as possible (the process called neurogenesis, which happens predominantly in-utero,) then, it keeps the ones it wants and gets rid of the rest. It is a process of molding the brain to perfection like an artist sculpting a statue to its perfect shape by chipping away the unwanted parts bit by bit. The synaptic pruning is carried out by glial cells such as microglia, which are produced predominantly after birth (the process called gliogenesis). The peaking of the prenatal neurogenesis and postnatal gliogenesis have been beautifully demonstrated in vivo, and more importantly, in vitro using brain organoids, which I have tweeted just a few days ago.

When I looked at the plot from the ENIGMA study illustrating the cortical thinning across lifespan, I wondered what happens to the cognitive abilities during the early steep decline in the cortical thickness. Disappointingly, the authors didn’t discuss that either in the paper. I remembered a great review article published in Annual Review of Developmental Psychology by Prof. Elliot M. Tucker Drob. I have superficially glanced through the paper many months ago. Particularly, a plot from the article stayed fresh in my memory; it illustrates the age related change in the fluid and crystallised cognitive abilities. In the article, Prof. Tucker-Drob writes

Cognitive abilities that require predominantly effortful processing at the time of assessment (e.g., fluid reasoning, visuospatial ability, episodic memory, and processing speed) typically peak in early adulthood (e.g., the twenties) and decline monotonically throughout middle and late adulthood, whereas cognitive abilities that rely predominantly on recital or rote application of previously acquired knowledge (e.g., crystallized knowledge, procedural knowledge, and specialized professional skills) typically peak in late adulthood (e.g., the sixties) …

From the article, it’s clear that during the adolescence and early adulthood all our cognitive abilities are in the rise, and it amazes me that, at the same time, our cortex is thinning out swiftly due to synaptic pruning. So, it is sensible to assume that the outcome of synaptic pruning is increase in the cognitive abilities. We grow wiser and wiser as our brain gets sculpted to perfection during our adolescence and early adulthood. But I wonder if the cognitive effects of the cortical thinning differ between the fluid and crystallised abilities. It is possible, as both follow different trajectories. While the fluid abilities peak at 20s, the crystallised abilities peak at 60s.

One way to deduce the cognitive associations of synaptic pruning is to find out the cognitive associations of disorders characterised by disrupted synaptic pruning. Yes, you guessed it right. Schizophrenia. One of the strongest GWAS associations of schizophrenia sits in the MHC locus where the alleles corresponding to a higher C4 expression poses an increased schizophrenia risk. C4 codes for complement factor 4, whose deposition over neurons sends eat-me signals to microglia resulting in the neuronal death. The C4 schizophrenia risk allele leading to an accelerated synaptic pruning has been demonstrated in mice models recently, and I have tweeted about it.

People often tend to quickly equate schizophrenia with poor cognition. But it is much more complicated than that. Clinically, schizophrenia patients exhibit poor cognitive functioning, particularly during the first psychotic attack (which is often considered to mark the disease onset). But as we know, phenotypic associations are affected by multiple confounding factors. If you look at the genetic correlations, schizophrenia exhibits a puzzling relationship with educational attainment and intelligence (two main cognitive phenotypes for which large scale GWASs exist.) Schizophrenia shows a positive genetic correlation with educational attainment, but a negative genetic correlation with intelligence. This might be a reflection of schizophrenia’s differential correlations with crystallised and fluid abilities. Educational attainment is a measure of crystallised abilities, and intelligence is a measure of fluid abilities (at least the one used in the past GWASs, which were powered mainly by the UK Biobank sample). In line with this assumption, I have also observed similar findings in my own work.

In my PhD project, I found that individuals with schizophrenia exhibit poor cognitive functioning in secondary school at around 15 years of age, long before the disease onset. Interestingly, the poor cognition was reflected only in their mathematics grades (a measure of fluid ability), but not in English or Danish grades (measures of crystallised abilities). Genetic correlation analysis revealed positive correlations with language grades, but negative correlations with mathematics grades. More interestingly, even individuals who never had schizophrenia exhibited differential math and language performances when stratified based on their polygenic risk for schizophrenia. Those with higher polygenic risk performed better in language, but poorer in math, and those with lower polygenic risk did the opposite.

Assuming that math grades and intelligence measurements reflect fluid abilities, and language grades and educational attainment reflect crystallised abilities, it makes sense to assume the differential cognitive correlations of schizophrenia should be--at least partly--driven by the synaptic pruning disruption and its likely consequence on the cortical thinning. To test these hypotheses, we need large scale genetic studies based on longitudinal brain imaging measures.

I’ll conclude by listing some research questions that need to be answered by the future studies.

Does the early steep decline in cortex thickness is driven by synaptic pruning?

What are the cognitive effects of cortex thinning during adolescence and early adulthood? Does the effects differ across cognitive domains?

Is the cortical thinning more accelerated in individuals with schizophrenia or in those with increased schizophrenia polygenic risk?

How much influence does genetics has on the early life cortical thinning ?

Are the genetic variants associated with early life cortical thinning under the influence of natural selection? Perhaps, they evade negative selection by trading off one type of cognition for the other? Does this has anything to do with the fact that schizophrenia remains common in the population despite having a high negative effect on fecundity?

#schizophrenia #cognition #cortical thinning #enigma #synaptic pruning #educational attainment #intelligence #fluid intelligence #crystallized intelligence

1 note · View note

impassive-aggressive · 5 years ago

Text

it is still ZOIDS HEADCANON TIME

PART 2 because i’m ridiculous

I'm operating on the assumption that by the time humans colonized Zi they'd spread out pretty well across the rest of the galaxy and p...ossibly made contact with extraterrestrials, mainly because I like to imagine there's intelligent life out there somewhere. (Intelligent life hat does not look Exactly Like Humans with extra bits stuck on.)

When the Human Federation or w/e discovered Zi and decided it would be feasible to colonize it, there were a lot of engineers/science-y types who really wanted to tinker with robot animals that ended up volunteering and being chosen for the initial expedition, along with various other types you'd want along to build a civilization on a distant planet. The mechanical organisms were initially dubbed Zi-oids, which over time became corrupted into the simpler name Zoids. After being tamed, they proved useful as pack animals, modes of transport, farm hands and companions. Contact with organoids started off pretty hostile but became more relaxed as time went on, per the other post. Eventually, the colonists developed quite advanced (though still very small) Zoids with respectable combat capabilities, designed primarily to protect them from attack by wild Zoids.

At this point only a small portion of the Western Continent had been settled, and while the rest of it still needed to be explored some of the settlers were eager to see what the planet's other continents were like; exploration of these was hindered by savage magnetic storms that made aerial or ocean travel a potentially deadly prospect. These people observed how organoids could seemingly defy the laws of physics by converting themselves into a pure energy state to teleport from place to place, etc. and started thinking "what if we did that, BUT WITH HUGE TRANSPORT ZOIDS" and began experimenting with smooshing together Organoid Physics-Defying Bullshit with what bits of Spacefaring Technology they'd managed to salvage from the ships that had brought them to Zi. The result was something that was eventually known as the Zoidcore Overload System, and while it was being tested one day, something went horrifyingly wrong and - to all outside observers, of which there were admittedly very few - the entire settlement vanished without a trace.

IN REALITY it had been transported back in time thousands upon thousands of years, which is blatant Time Travel Bullshit but o well. (Also Legacy gave us canon time fuckery so god dammit, I'm gonna use it.) The colonists were disoriented, frightened and cut off from any further contact with their homeworld, but since the entire settlement with all of its farms, greenhouses and other resources had been displaced together, nobody was quite as badly off as they could have been. Shaken but determined, most of the colony pulled themselves together to push onward with their lives.

Some of the colonists were pretty mad about being temporally displaced and wanted someone to fix it, which of course was impossible, but they attempted to use force to make it happen and got booted out of the colony for being asshats. Taking their Zoids, organoids and whatever supplies they could carry with them, they wandered off and eventually started another settlement elsewhere. Both settlements continued developing Zoids, albeit now with more of an eye toward combat practicality now that they knew they had enemies out there.

As this went on, organoids started evolving too - originally small, drab creatures who oversaw whole swarms of wild Zoids as their charges, their species eventually started selecting for individuals who bonded with the human settlers and their Zoids; these specimens grew larger, displayed higher intelligence due to the mental bond they shared with other sapients, and thrived in comparison to their wilder counterparts. They also led less stressful lives as they tended to a single, relatively sedate Zoid rather than having to protect and heal numerous creatures that were constantly being preyed upon by each other. (They also happened to evolve in a variety of bright colors, due to their human companions’ natural preference for such things.) Eventually, wild organoids were all but extinct on Zi.

Before too long the colonists discovered the thing they wound up calling Zoid Eve and built the city of Eveopolis around it. As their population grew and prospered, they made great technological advances and started improving themselves using computerized implants that allowed them to bond more closely with their Zoids, utilize remote "drone" units, and grant some of them seemingly supernatural powers. They ceased to think of themselves as humans any longer and began calling themselves Zoidians.

Then everyone started fighting over Zoid Eve, the Death Saurer happened, the Zoidian race was decimated after thousands of years of prosperity, and the last handful of survivors went into stasis.

MEANWHILE, ON EARTH

The governments of the world are wary of Zi. Something bad happened there; they’ve never gotten to the bottom of what caused that first colony to disappear decades ago. It also seemed to have undergone intense environmental changes - huge swathes of the planet’s western continent are barren desert. It’s basically everyone’s last choice of planet to try and settle.

The fifth son of a royal family has become deeply dissatisfied with his station in life. Young and ambitious, he’s hungry enough for power that his elders can see he poses a problem, and devise a means of getting rid of him: they charge him with taking a group of imperial citizens to Zi to establish a branch of the royal family there. The prince knows what they’re trying to do but can’t reasonably defy the order, so he goes.

Thus, Zi is claimed (reluctantly) for the Guylos Empire.

The settlers find the planet tolerable, if not exactly welcoming. They’re hardy folk from having survived on an increasingly inhospitable Earth, and are willing to work hard to make this new world their home. They have great success adapting the planet’s native life forms to their uses, and soon have a stable, vibrant civilization living and working alongside Zoids. Their emperor, too, is pleased with the success of this venture; it wasn’t the kingdom he’d dreamed of, but it is his, and his people are prospering under his rule.

The settlers are curious, of course, about the remnants of a past civilization that they eventually find - ruined structures here and there, the ossified remains of what are definitely Zoids but quite unlike either the wild specimens or anything human engineers have yet come up with. But much of their lives are taken up by simply living; they focus on the present in order to build themselves a stable future, and have no time to dwell on what happened in the past.

Within a handful of generations, some of the Guylos citizens grow restless and crave freedom from their Imperial masters. They break off and form the Helic Republic. The Empire does not suffer this gladly, and war breaks out, raging for several years before an uneasy truce is reached to allow the battered forces of both sides to recover.

The arms race triggered by the outbreak of war drives both the Empire and the Republic to excavate countless ruins of the civilization that called themselves Zoidians. They make amazing discoveries - advanced technology whose workings they can barely comprehend; Zoids of incredible complexity, though their operating systems and user interfaces render them all but unusable to humans; and capsules. Rows and rows of capsules, in some places - always a large one accompanied by a much smaller one. Very few of the small capsules prove useful - the rooms in which they are found are often partially destroyed, the capsules breached by falling debris or the ravages of time - but the larger ones often bear fruit in the form of small, startlingly intelligent Zoids with incredible abilities.

By incorporating elements of ancient Zoidian technology into their designs, the humans of Zi quickly develop more effective weapons - more efficient ways of killing each other. By the time the truce is reached, Zi’s inhabitants are bone-weary of conflict, many living in worse conditions than their ancestors of centuries past. While several large cities remain standing - most notably the capitals of the Republic and Empire - most of Zi’s inhabitants are reduced to small settlements, relying on subsistence farming or trade to support themselves, and constantly under threat of attack by bandits or other troublemakers. It’s a difficult life, but the Zians determinedly struggle on. Giving up is not in their nature.

THEN CC/GF HAPPENS

Afterward, a small handful of people (mostly military) are aware of the existence of Ancient Zoidians, Organoids and Zoid Eve. The Death Saurer and Death Stinger are eventually relegated to "wew lad good thing we weren't around for that shit"-style legend. Helic and Guylos remain on mostly good terms in the ensuing decades, both bonded and scared shitless by the whole Death Zoid mess. People start using Zoids in happy pretendy funtime battles, and the world at large is a pretty swell place to live.

And then the Backdraft starts digging up Ultimate X Zoids and some other fuckfaces stick Ancient Zoidian AIs into Raynoses that end up being sold to the general public.

Something something Gilvader.

#zoids #headcanon #worldbuilding

17 notes · View notes

esotericworld · 6 years ago

Text

“...researchers at the Salk Institute had successfully implanted human brain organoids into the brains of mice. And not only did these mini-brains grow, they also integrated with the mice’s brains. These clusters of human brain cells actually forged connections to the mice’s neurons and merged blood supplies.

This experiment wasn’t the first time scientists had seen human brain organoids begin to integrate with those of their host rodents. In 2017, a team at the University of Pennsylvania implanted human brain organoids into rats, where they integrated and survived for months. In the mouse experiment, the organoids survived for 233 days in some cases. In both cases, despite the organoids’ blood vessels and nerve cells integrating with the mice’s brains, the host animals did not show signs that they were benefiting from human intelligence.

That being said, these successful experiments have medical ethicists thinking long and hard about what to do if the day comes when such experiments do result in mice with human-like intelligence. Fortunately, in a 2017 experiment with human-pig chimeras, scientists assured Inverse that there’s a “safety switch” to keep organoids in non-human animals from becoming sentient.”

https://www.inverse.com/article/51494-the-25-most-wtf-science-stories-of-2018

#science #technology #biology #sentience #chimera #human sentience #genetics

12 notes · View notes

themedicalstate · 7 years ago

Photo

Image Credit: Andrew Brookes Getty Images

Miniature Human Brains Grow for Months When Implanted in Mice Skulls

Article by Sharon Begley (Scientific American)

The mice behaved just like others of their kind, as far as scientists could tell, and they also looked the same—except for the human mini brain that had been implanted into each rodent’s own cortex, made visible by a little clear cover replacing part of their skull.

The report on Monday by scientists at the Salk Institute is the first publication describing the successful implant of human cerebral organoids into the brains of another species, with the host brain supplying the lentil-sized mini cerebrums with enough blood and nutrients to keep them alive and developing for months. It won’t be the last, as scientists use the approach to understand human brain development and test whether the tiny entities might one day serve as cortical repair kits, replacing regions of the brain that have been injured or failed to develop normally.

It’s “an important technical advance,” said neuroscientist Michal Stachowiak of the State University of New York, Buffalo, who created human cerebral organoids to study schizophrenia, and “an important initial step toward using organoids in regenerative medicine.”

When the Salk researchers briefly described their experiments last November at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, bioethicists raised questions about what implants of human brain organoids would do to mice’s intelligence, consciousness, and even their identity as mice. The published paper, in Nature Biotechnology, fills in details about how successfully the human organoid integrated into the mouse brain and addresses one of those concerns: At least in the tests the scientists ran, the mice with human brain organoids seemed no different, and no smarter, than standard lab mice.

Since the first human brain organoids were created from stem cells in 2013, scientists have gotten them to form structures like those in the brains of fetuses, to sprout dozens of different kinds of brain cells, and to develop abnormalities like those causing neurological diseases such as Timothy syndrome. Researchers hope the organoids will be better than lab animals or cells growing in culture at revealing how the human brain develops, both normally and when things go awry, and identify potential therapeutic or genome-editing targets.

The basic recipe takes human stem cells, makes them differentiate into brain cells, and lets them grow into entities a few millimeters across that mimic the structure, cell populations, and even the electrical activity of the full-blown version.

Image: Human brain organoid (glowing) implanted into a mouse cortex. THE SALK INSTITUTE

But the verisimilitude of human brain organoids has been limited: Once they grow more than a few millimeters across, oxygen and nutrients can’t get to their innermost cells. “In our hands, the organoids stop growing around five weeks,” said Salk’s Fred Gage, who led the study. “It’s a function of size rather than time. We see some cell death even in the edge of the organoids starting at 10 weeks, which becomes really dramatic over time. This is an obvious hurdle for longtime study” if the goal is to follow brain development for longer than a trimester or two prenatally, the stage at which the current crop of brain organoids start to wither. Implanting human brain organoids in a mouse brain gives them everything they need to grow and develop.

The Salk team therefore took human brain organoids that had been growing in lab dishes for 31 to 50 days and implanted them into mouse brains (more than 200 so far) from which they had removed a tiny bit of tissue to make room. Because the human cells had been genetically engineered to express green fluorescent protein, the tiny blobs showed up in brilliant lime through the transparent window that the scientists glued into the mice’s skull.

Some 80 percent of the implants took. Within two to 12 weeks, the organoids were sprouting additional neurons, including ones found in very specific regions of the human cortex; glia cells including astrocytes; and neural stem cells. By 14 days almost all the organoids had developed a rich network of blood vessels carrying nutrients and oxygen, allowing them to survive for up to 233 days. Their structure and cell maturation was that of a newborn.

The implanted organoids were also sending axons—the biological wires that carry brain signals from one neuron to another—into both sides of the mouse brain, not only the side with the window, and forming such strong synapses with mouse neurons that the neural activity of the two species was synchronized.

“When neurons fire together, that means they are connected and [engage in] cross-talk,” said Salk’s Abed Mansour, the paper’s lead author, forming “neuronal networks.”

For all the human-mouse mixing, however, the rodents were no better learners than those with mouse-only brains. The scientists put the mice onto a circular platform with 20 holes around the edge, gently guiding them to the one hole that led to an escape tunnel and then letting them try it themselves to test their memory. (The other holes were dead ends.) On the first day of testing, the mice with human brain organoids made fewer mistakes, finding the right hole more often, but this edge vanished by the second day.

“We are just scratching the surface” in terms of behavior tests, Gage said. “I think it’s early to provide solid answers to this important question.” The escape-hole test is very specific, he pointed out: “I can’t exclude at this point other behavioral impacts.”

Republished with permission from STAT. This article originally appeared on April 16, 2018

#science #neuroscience #neurobiology #medicine

257 notes · View notes

un-enfant-immature · 3 years ago

Text

Dutch startup hub Utrecht emerges from Amsterdam’s shadow

While Amsterdam garners the lion’s share of attention in the Netherlands tech ecosystem, the not-so-far-away region around Utrecht has its fair share of tech startups and investors, as is evidenced by our latest survey of locals, below.

Area ecosystem wranglers such as StartupUtrecht, UtrechtInc, Holland Startup, Utrecht Community and others bring startups, scaleups, corporates, angels, VCs, local government, banks and universities together to build the local startup ecosystem. They also benefit from the formidable Netherlands tech advocate initiative StartupDelta and The Netherlands Enterprise Agency, which promote the Netherlands more widely.

Utrecht is the fourth-largest city in the Netherlands, with 350,000 inhabitants. Its offices and co-working spaces include Dotslash Utrecht, De Stadstuin, MindSpace and Tribes; as well as accelerator programs like Startupbootcamp and Techleap.

Notable startups from the region include Distimo (acquired by AppAnnie), unicorn GitLab, MoneyMonk and StuComm. Plus there are newer ones such as SnappCar, Blendle, Merus, Nibblr, United Wardrobe, Näpp, Lalaland, 2DAYSMOOD and Remind2Change.

Our survey respondents think the ecosystem is strong in sustainable energy, medtech, food tech, life sciences, marketplaces, deep tech, gaming and media. However, they seem to think it’s weaker in design, hardware, fintech, robotics and agritech.

Notable startups named by our respondents include Channable, Pepscope, Goin’ Connect, Fundsup, Tover, Faqta, Sensorfact, SODAQ, Picnic, Neurolytics, De Clique, Solease, BikeFlip, Packaly, DiManEx, Trunkrs, DialogueTrainer, EatMyRide, CART-Tech, Prolira, among many, many others. It just goes to show the region has a strong and growing ecosystem.

The investment scene is described variously as focusing on software, clean tech, life sciences, biotech, organoids, 3D bioprinting, AI and VR/AR. One says: “In Amsterdam it’s ok. Utrecht is a bit lagging.” Another said, “The investor scene focuses on early-stage, scalable tech in healthcare, sustainability and education. [There are] many local informal investors and nationally operating VCs.”

With the shift to remote working, many respondents think people will “preferably move out of the city center toward the villages nearby” as there is “a lot of nature/space around.” That said, Utrecht is “a growing hub” and many will “stay in the city. But fewer people will move in, and remote working is there to stay.” It’s also easy to work remotely in the Netherlands given its proximity to other big European cities, so it may attract new digital nomads, “thanks to the central position of Utrecht in the middle of the country and the attractiveness of the ecosystem.”

We surveyed:

Jorg Kop, investment manager, ROM Utrecht Region

Stefan Braam, incubation lead, UtrechtInc

Irene Van de Poll, investment manager, ROM Utrecht Region

Arthur Tolsma, CEO and co-founder, Codean

Paul Mignot, founder and CEO, Withthegrid

Marcel Merkx, founder and CEO, CargoSnap

Jasper Voorendonk, marketer/founder, AgnostiPay

Menno Vergeer, co-founder and CEO, Redgrasp

Roelof Reineman, entrepreneur

Luuk Post, partner, De Contentkalender

Leon Brunenberg, managing partner, Arches Capital

Erik Stam, co-founder, Stichting Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Observatory

Jorg Kop, investment manager, ROM Utrecht Region

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Digital, gaming, e-health, edtech, sustainability.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Channable, Pandora Intelligence, Sensorfact, SnappCar, Faqta, StuComm, DiManEx, Prolira, CART-Tech.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? Many local informal investors and national operating VCs.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Others will be moving in, thanks to the central position of Utrecht in the middle of the country and the attractiveness of the ecosystem.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Sjoerd Mol (Benvalor), Erik Stam (Utrecht University), Robbert-Jan Hanse (Holland Startup), Heerd Jan Hoogeveen (Startup Utrecht), Jorg Kop (UtrechtInc and ROM), Edgard Creemers (ROM).

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Part of the greater Amsterdam region from an international brand perspective, closely working together with all other key startup regions in NL.

Stefan Braam, incubation lead, UtrechtInc

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong: AI, health, sustainability and learning. Weak: robotics, engineering, ag.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Solease, SnappCar, BikeFlip, Packaly, Sensorfact, DiManEx, Näpp, Trunkrs, StuComm, Faqta, DialogueTrainer, EatMyRide, CART-Tech, Prolira, MRIguidance, Redgrasp, SyncVR, DigiDok, Learned.io, 2DAYSMOOD, Hooray and Goin’ Connect.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? Good access to funding. Investor scene focuses on early-stage, scalable tech in healthcare, sustainability and education.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? We see an increase in startups coming to the city, due to livability in the lovely city and the facilities for flex working.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Jorg Kop (director of UtrechtInc startup incubator), Heerd Jan Hoogeveen (director of StartupUtrecht), Arjan Van Den Born (director, ROM Utrecht).

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Growing fast, in top five in Europe in five years.

Irene Van de Poll, investment manager, ROM Utrecht Region

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? The Utrecht region is strong in life sciences, medtech, software (smart services), gaming and media.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Channable, Faqta, Sensorfact, SODAQ, Picnic, Neurolytics, De Clique.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? A lot of focus is on life sciences, biotech, as there is a lot of research at the Utrecht science park and also spin-offs. At the science park, organoids, 3D bioprinting, organ on a chip, medtech are areas of interest. Also a number of the VCs in the area are health focused. IT/software/data/AI and VR/AR are also important focus areas for investors.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? I think they will stay as Utrecht is very centrally located in the Netherlands and Europe. It’s easy to work remotely in the Netherlands, internet speed is no problem.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Jorg Kop, director of UtrechtInc; Bas van Abel, founder De Clique and Fairphone; Michiel Muller, CEO Picnic; Robbert Jan Hanse, founder Holland Startup; and Heerd Jan Hoogeveen, director StartupUtrecht.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? More startups that have evolved into successful scaleups. More money invested in general in innovative new companies. International talent sees Utrecht as the place to be beside Amsterdam. At the forefront of green and sustainable solutions.

Arthur Tolsma, co-founder and CEO, Codean

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong: tech development in general, specifically software, clean tech, marketplace, deep tech. Less in large scale commercialization.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Channable, Tover.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? Focus on software and clean tech.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay in the city. But less people will move in, and remote working is there to stay.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? UtrechtInc.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Improving step by step.

Paul Mignot, founder and CEO, Withthegrid

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Clean tech.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? iwell.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? Clean tech focus. Growing in momentum.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Move in.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Grown significantly. Amsterdam is pricing itself out and becoming too expensive to live in.

Marcel Merkx, founder and CEO, CargoSnap

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong universities in the marketing and medical space. We could do with a bit stronger IT education (developers!).

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? SnappCar.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay and move in. Utrecht is a growing hub.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? StartupUtrecht — the team.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Well … still lagging Amsterdam, but leveraging the central place in the Netherlands (easy to get to), it will be a good runner-up in terms of attracting talent interested in joining this scene.

Jasper Voorendonk, marketer/founder, AgnostiPay

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Health tech/edtech — most exited: the DLT/blockchain/fintech/open-source space in Utrecht. Weak: Hardware-based startups (better in Delft/Eindhoven).

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? GitLab, Channable, Pepscope, Goin’ Connect, Fundsup.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? Focus on health tech.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay: a lot of nature/space around.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Jorg Kop, Stefan Braam, Jasper Voorendonk.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Utrecht, as the Dutch vibrant hub for early-stage, highly scalable tech startups.

Menno Vergeer, co-founder and CEO, Redgrasp

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong in life sciences.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Channable, Redgrasp, Trunkrs.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? People will preferably move out of the city center toward the villages nearby (all within a range of 10-20 km).

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? It will grow at a rate similar to the global tech scene.

Roelof Reineman, entrepreneur

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong: IT, digital, sustainable energy, medical, food. Weaker: design, hardware, fintech.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? KokeRoo.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? A focus on building a better world and a profit, not just the profit.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay. Tt is a lush, green city with plenty of room to live and breathe.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Utrecht Inc (Jasper Voorendonk). Dotslash (Jelle Drijver). StartupUtrecht (Heerd Jan Hoogeveen).

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Thriving and still growing.

Luuk Post, partner, De Contentkalender

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in?

We’re strong in public affairs. We’re weak in the for-profit sector.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Moveshelf.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? The city of Utrecht is ever-expanding; people will always move in.

Leon Brunenberg, managing partner, Arches Capital

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? SAAS, software, B2B.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? In Amsterdam it’s ok. Utrecht is a bit lagging.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? In Holland, second after Amsterdam.

Erik Stam, co-founder, Stichting Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Observatory

What industry sectors is your tech ecosystem strong in? What are you most excited by? What is it weak in? Strong: health, edtech, IT.

Which are the most interesting startups in your city? Channable, Tover, De Clique, Bittiq, Neurolytics.

What are the tech investors like? What is the investment scene like in your city? What’s their focus? IT, health, edtech, travel.

With the shift to remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic, will people stay in your city, move out, or will others move in? Stay.

Who are the key startup people in your city (e.g., investors, founders, lawyers, designers, etc.)? Jorg Kop, Heerd Jan Hoogeveen, Robbert Jan Hanse.

Where do you see your city’s tech scene in five years’ time? Expanding.

#TechCrunch

0 notes

shruticmi-universe · 4 years ago

Text

STEM CELLS MARKET ANALYSIS

Stem Cells Market, By Type (Adult Stem Cells, Human Embryonic Stem Cells, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Natural Rosette Cells, Very Small Embryonic Like Stem Cells), By Application (Regenerative Medicine, Drug Discovery and Development), By Technology (Cell Acquisition, Cell Production, Cryopreservation, Expansion and Sub-Culture), and By Region (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa) - Size, Share, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 2020 – 2027

Stem cells are undifferentiated cells which are capable of differentiating into any type of cell that make-up the human body and thus, are capable of producing non-regenerative cells such as neural and myocardial cells.

Statistics:

The global stem cells market is estimated to account for US$ 9,941.2 Mn in terms of value in 2020 and is expected to reach US$ 18,289.9 Mn by the end of 2027.

Global Stem Cells Market: Drivers

Approval and launch of new products is expected to propel growth of the global stem cells market over the forecast period. For instance, in December 2019, BioRestorative Therapies, Inc. received a Notice of Allowance on its patent application for a method of generating brown fat stem cells from Israeli Patent Office.

Moreover, increasing number of stem cell banking resource centers is also expected to aid in growth of the market. For instance, in March 2020, Stemlife Berhad, a cord blood bank in Malaysia, started a Stem Cell Banking Resource Center in Jerudong Park Medical Center, Brunei.

Statistics:

Adult stem cells held dominant position in the global stem cells market in 2019, accounting for 81.2% share in terms of value, followed by Human Embryonic Stem Cells and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, respectively

Figure 1. Global Stem Cells Market Share (%), by Value, by Cell Type, 2019.

Global Stem Cells Market: Restraints

High cost of stem cell therapy is expected to hinder growth of the global stem cells market. For instance, Bioinformant— a research firm engaged in stem cell research, reported that the cost of stem cell therapy ranges between US$ 5,000-8,000 per patient and in some cases it may rise as much as US$ 25,000 or more depending on the complexity of the procedure.

Moreover, restrictions on research activities related to stem cells had hampered the growth of embryonic stem cells historically and resulted in its meager share in the total market in spite of its advantages over adult stem cells.

Stem Cells Market Report Coverage

Global Stem Cells Market: Opportunities

R&D in stem cell donation is expected to offer lucrative growth opportunities for players in the global stem cells market. For instance, in March 2020, researchers from Dankook University and Catholic University, South Korea, reported investigation of the types and degrees of physical and psychological discomfort experienced by hematopoietic stem cell donors before, during, and after the donation process.

Moreover, adoption of online distribution channel is also expected to aid in growth of the global stem cells market. For instance, “The US Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace for Autologous Stem Cell Interventions”, published in the journal Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, in 2018, the number of new stem cell businesses with websites doubled on average every year between 2009 and 2014, in the U.S.

The global stem cells market was valued at US$ 9,112.0 Mn in 2019 and is forecast to reach a value of US$ 18,289.9 Mn by 2027 at a CAGR of 9.1% between 2020 and 2027.

Figure 2. Global Stem Cells Market Value (US$ Mn), and Y-o-Y Growth (%), 2019-2027

Market Trends/Key Takeaways

Adoption of stem cells for the treatment of various diseases is expected to propel growth of the global stem cells market. For instance, in January 2020, researchers at University of Houston developed biologic cardiac pacemaker-like cells by taking fat stem cells and reprogramming them as an alternative treatment for heart conditions such as conduction system disorders and heart attacks.

Moreover, increasing investment in stem cell therapies is also expected to aid in growth of the market. For instance, in July 2018, the Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Center, in collaboration with Sanford Health, Duke University, Andrews Institute, and Georgia Institute of Technology, received US$ 13 million grant from the Marcus Foundation for a multicenter clinical trial studying stem cell options for treating osteoarthritis. The Phase 3 trial was initiated in March 2019, and is expected to complete by December 2021.

Global Stem Cells Market: Competitive Landscape

Major players operating in the global stem cells market include, Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., Angel Biotechnology Holdings PLC, Bioheart Inc., Lineage Cell Therapeutics., BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, Inc., California Stem Cell Inc., Celgene Corporation, Takara Bio Europe AB, Cellular Engineering Technologies, Cytori Therapeutics Inc., Osiris Therapeutics, and STEMCELL Technologies Inc.

Global Stem Cells Market: Key Developments

Major players in the market are focused on adopting collaboration and partnership strategies to expand their product portfolio. For instance, in September 2018, STEMCELL Technologies signed an exclusive license agreement with Brigham and Women’s Hospital for rights to commercialize technologies for the generation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived kidney organoids.

Request sample report here:https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/4222

Download PDF brochure here: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-pdf/4222

About Us:

Coherent Market Insights is a global market intelligence and consulting organization focused on assisting our plethora of clients achieve transformational growth by helping them make critical business decisions.

What we provide:

· Customized market research service

· Industry analysis services

· Business consulting services

· Market intelligence services

· Long term engagement model

· Country specific analysis

Mr. shah

Coherent Market Insights Pvt. Ltd.

Address: Coherent Market Insights 1001 4th Ave, #3200 Seattle, WA 98154, U.S. Phone:

+1-206-701-6702

Email:

[email protected]

Source: https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/market-insight/stem-cells-market-4222

#Stem Cells Market

0 notes