A laboratory technique that turns human stem cells into brain-like tissue now recapitulates human brain development more accurately than ever, according to a study from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The study, published in Nature Methods, demonstrates how to grow brain 'organoids'—self-organising mini spheres that now contain all the major cell types found in the human cerebral cortex—in laboratory dishes.

A Case Western Reserve University researcher has turned the origami she enjoyed as a child into a patent-pending soft robot that may one day be used on an assembly line, in surgery or even outer space. Kiju Lee, the Nord Distinguished Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and her lab have moved from paper robots to 3D-printed models that bend, contract, extend and twist. This novel mechanism is called TWISTER (TWISted ...

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in collaboration with researchers from Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine and RWTH Aachen University (Germany) have adapted virus particles—that normally infect potatoes—to serve as cancer drug delivery devices for mice. But in an article published in Nano Letters, the team showed injecting the virus particles alongside chemotherapy drugs, instead of packing the drug...

A deep-learning computer network developed through research led by Case Western Reserve University was 100% accurate in determining whether invasive forms of breast cancer were present in whole biopsy slides. Looking closer, the network correctly made the same determination in each individual pixel of the slide 97% of the time, rendering near-exact delineations of the tumours.

Bill Kochevar grabbed a mug of water, drew it to his lips and drank through the straw. His motions were slow and deliberate, but then Kochevar hadn’t moved his right arm or hand for eight years. And it took some practice to reach and grasp just by thinking about it. Kochevar, who was paralysed below his shoulders in a bicycling accident, is believed to be the first person with quadriplegia in the world to have arm and hand mo...

  A Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine researcher has received a $2.5 million grant from Gilead Sciences, a California-based biopharmaceutical company, to see if two so-far separately-used AIDS treatments are even more effective when used as a pair.

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University, Dayton Air Force Research Laboratory and China have developed a new dry adhesive that bonds in extreme temperatures—a quality that could make the product ideal for space exploration and beyond. The gecko-inspired adhesive loses no traction in temperatures as cold as liquid nitrogen or as hot as molten silver, and actually gets stickier as heat increases, the researchers report.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have combined tissues from a sea slug with flexible 3D-printed components to build "biohybrid" robots that crawl like sea turtles on the beach. A muscle from the slug's mouth provides the movement, which is currently controlled by an external electrical field. However, future iterations of the device will include ganglia, bundles of neurons and nerves that normally conduct signals to the muscle as th...