Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent for $500 per month

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by abeppu on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @09:44AM (#41379462)

As someone actually in this space, does the "rental" concept give you any concerns about the quality of research this can support? Like, if the previous customer's use of the organoids will have stateful impacts that impact what you observe? It strikes me that with conventional computers in the cloud we have pretty straight-forward assurances that each customer gets the instance in a fresh state.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by finalspark on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @09:53AM (#41379554)

I am one of FinalSpark's co-founder. You are right, this can be a concern. People who rent have the option to pay for exclusive access.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by seesawtron on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @10:06AM (#41379687)

How hard is it to do something like this on your platform [0]? Are there any other real-world examples where people are using your platform to do something similar?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEXefdbQDjw

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by finalspark on Friday August 30, 2024 @06:03AM (#41399267)

If you talk about learning to play doom, I would say it is unrealistic at this point and still a topic of research, the purpose of the neuroplatform is precisely to find reliable ways to train neurons to perform a specific task.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by RaftPeople on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @10:07AM (#41379705)

What's the timeline for expanding the 8 electrodes (I assume that is the only way to get signals in and out)?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by finalspark on Friday August 30, 2024 @06:04AM (#41399270)

Well, we already have systems with 32 electrodes, and we are looking at alternative to increase this by several orders of magnitude. I hope we have something next year.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by seesawtron on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @09:54AM (#41379558)

I'd imagine its easy to set up independent platforms for different users. Organoids are pretty easy to develop. Large costs come from Multi Electrode Array recording devices that can be >30K.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Human brain organoid bioprocessors now available to rent ... by RaftPeople on Wednesday August 28, 2024 @10:05AM (#41379676)

That's a great question I hadn't thought of. Neurons definitely have state in vitro (internally and inter-neuron, e.g. synapses and tunneling nanotubes).

[ Parent | on HN ]