Brain Balls

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Jan 9, 2026

Madeline Lancaster, a pioneering neuroscientist, accidentally discovered cerebral organoids while using expired lab materials. These miniature brain models reveal how human brains develop and are now used in cancer treatment and even play video games like Pong. The discussion dives into ethical concerns about their potential consciousness and the implications of connecting organoids to study pain pathways. Lancaster's groundbreaking work opens up new avenues for understanding human development and diseases, sparking both fascination and debate.

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ANECDOTE

Accidental Discovery Sparked Organoids

Madeline Lancaster accidentally used expired glue and found mouse neural stem cells forming floating blobs instead of dying.
That mistake led her to discover self-organizing structures that later became cerebral organoids.

ANECDOTE

Human Cells Grew Eye-Like Structures

Lancaster transitioned from mouse to human stem cells and watched them form brain-like structures, including a pigmented ring she identified as an eye.
The lab realized they could study early human brain development in ways previously impossible.

INSIGHT

Organoids Open a Window Into Development

The 2013 Nature paper made early human brain development directly observable for the first time.
That breakthrough transformed the study of developmental neurological disorders.

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When neuroscientist Madeline Lancaster was a brand new postdoc, she accidentally used an expired protein gel in a lab experiment and noticed something weird. The stem cells she was trying to grow in a dish were self-assembling. The result? Madeline was the first person ever to grow what she called a “cerebral organoid,” a tiny, 3D version of a human brain the size of a peppercorn.

In about a decade, these mini human brain balls were everywhere. They were revealing bombshell secrets about how our brains develop in the womb, helping treat advanced cancer patients, being implanted into animals, even playing the video game Pong. But what are they? Are these brain balls capable of sensing, feeling, learning, being? Are they tiny, trapped humans? And if they were, how would we know?

Special thanks to Lynn Levy, Jason Yamada-Hanff, David Fajgenbaum, Andrew Verstein, Anne Hamilton, Christopher Mason, Madeline Mason-Mariarty, the team at the Boston Museum of Science, and Howard Fine, Stefano Cirigliano, and the team at Weill-Cornell.

EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Latif Nasser
with help from - Mona Madgavkar
Produced by - Annie McEwen, Mona Madgavkar, and Pat Walters
with mixing help from - Jeremy Bloom
Fact-checking by - Natalie Middleton and Rebecca Rand
and Edited by - Alex Neason and Pat Walters

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Videos -

“Growing Mini Brains to Discover What Makes Us Human,” Madeline Lancaster’s TEDxCERN Talk, Nov 2015 (https://zpr.io/6WP7xfA27auR)
Brain cells playing Pong (https://zpr.io/pqgSqguJeAPK)
Reuters report on CL1 computer launch in March 2025 (https://zpr.io/cdMf8Yjvayyd)

Articles -

Madeline Lancaster: The accidental organoid – mini-brains as models for human brain development (https://zpr.io/nnwFwUwnm2p6), MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
What We Can Learn From Brain Organoids (https://zpr.io/frUfsg4pxKsb), by Carl Zimmer. NYT, November 6, 2025
Ethical Issues Related to Brain Organoid Research (https://zpr.io/qyiATHEhdnSa), by Insoo Hyun et al, Brain Research, 2020
Brain organoids get cancer, too, opening a new frontier in personalized medicine (https://zpr.io/nqMCQ) STAT Profile of Howard Fine and his lab’s glioblastoma research at Weill Cornell Medical Center:
By re-creating neural pathway in dish, Stanford Medicine research may speed pain treatment (https://zpr.io/UnegZeQZfqn2) Stanford Medicine profile of Sergiu Pasca’s research on pain in organoids
A brief history of organoids (https://zpr.io/waSbUCSrL9va) by Corrò et al, American Journal of Physiology - Cell Physiology,

Books -
Carl Zimmer Life’s Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive (https://carlzimmer.com/books/lifes-edge/)

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