Focus group 1. Brain organoids

Phase 1 - Work in small groups (4-5 people to discuss the following topics) time 20 min

Phase 2 - Open discussion in the class - 30 min

Mansour et al., 2018

1.     You are asked to identify two main findings of this study in term of their significance and impact for future research: what is your choice and why?

2.     Imagine you are acting as a referee for this paper – can you identify possible criticisms/limits in the experiments/data presented and/or suggest further experiments to be performed to increase the impact of the study?

Lancaster et al., 2013

1.     What are the key elements of the protocol that allowed production of brain organoids? What are the main limits of this technique? Which are the cells used to generate brain organoids in this study?

2.     The study is centered on human brain development, but for some experiments mouse-derived brain organoids were generated - why?

3.     Based on the data presented on the paper is there a large or small sample-to sample variability?

Did you watch the video by M. Lancaster? Do you have any comment (positive/criticism) on that?