Petri Dish News and Research

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New discovery overturns a prevailing model of brain development

For centuries, scientists have thought of the brain as a single, unified organ. But new research led by Stanford Medicine reveals that what we call the brain is two distinct organs that evolved independently over hundreds of millions of years.

18 Sep 2026

Scientists develop lab-grown heart tissue model for heart failure

Scientists study the underlying causes of a disease or test new potential drugs in animal models or cells obtained from human biopsy specimens before clinical trials.

2 Sep 2026

New method based on human blood simplifies mRNA drug development

mRNA-based drugs are emerging as the drug of the future for a wide range of diseases, but they are difficult and time-consuming to develop.

1 Sep 2026

Dogs could transform the future of autism drug development

For thirty years the search for autism medicines has hit the same wall, and a new peer-reviewed Perspective in Genomic Psychiatry suggests that the way around it has been sleeping at our feet the entire time.

25 Jun 2026

Researchers identify vulnerabilities shared by surviving cancer cells

Cancer drugs can shrink fast-growing tumors. But sometimes a few tumor cells survive. These "persister" cells seed new tumors, forcing cancer patients into arduous cycles of testing and treatment.

12 Jun 2026

New blood test tracks real time gene expression inside living brain tissue

Cell function is determined by how DNA is expressed into proteins. That process includes two main steps - transcription, when messenger RNA (mRNA) makes copies of active genes, and translation, when mRNA guides protein assembly.

2 Jun 2026

Current-free wireless fields selectively alter immune and cancer cell migration

Traditional electrotaxis assays place electrodes directly into the cell culture medium, which inevitably drives current through the sample.

27 May 2026

ISTA researchers prove keratin is indispensable for coherent cell migration

Hair, nails, and horns, all made up of keratin, are some of the hardest and most resilient structures in animals. Inside zebrafish cells, keratin plays a distinct role, giving them the strength they need to move together as a coherent tissue while modulating the driving forces behind their movement during early development. But what happens when keratin is missing?

22 May 2026

Researchers use living human cells on a chip to study memory loss

A University of Bath-led project has secured £500,000 to develop a first-of-its-kind 'organ-on-chip' device that replicates connections between the brain, gut and pancreas.

19 May 2026

Penn researchers develop ApexGO to enhance promising antibiotic candidates

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed ApexGO, a novel, AI-powered method for turning promising but imperfect antibiotic candidates into more potent ones.

13 May 2026

Worms help researchers tackle rare childhood genetic disease

A new worm model developed by Brown University researchers could play a key role in treating a rare genetic disease that causes paralysis in children and worsens with age.

13 May 2026

Rapid blood infection test fails to improve survival

Rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing for gram-negative blood infections shows no improvement in clinical outcomes compared to standard testing methods.

22 Apr 2026

Organ-on-chip model advances study of sexually transmitted infections

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) not only impact an individual's health but also result in multibillion-dollar economic losses worldwide.

3 Apr 2026

New wound dressing targets infections while reducing antibiotic overuse

Biomedical engineers from Brown University have developed a new wound dressing material that releases antibiotic drugs only when harmful bacteria are present in a wound.

19 Mar 2026

Zebrafish reveal how new kidney units connect and function

MDI Bio Lab scientists discover how the fish solves a basic challenge in regenerative biology-insights in their newest publication in the journal Development could one day guide human repair.

17 Mar 2026

Vitamin A and thyroid hormones in the retina shape fetal vision

Humans develop sharp vision during early fetal development thanks to an interplay between a vitamin A derivative and thyroid hormones in the retina, Johns Hopkins University scientists have found.

13 Feb 2026

Optically invisible culture dishes improve embryo imaging in IVF

Selecting the healthiest embryo is one of the most important steps in in‑vitro fertilization (IVF), yet it remains one of the most uncertain.

4 Feb 2026

Exploring Targeted Protein Degradation as a New Strategy to Tackle Antimicrobial Resistance

Targeted protein degradation presents a promising strategy to address antimicrobial resistance, focusing on innovative approaches for gram-negative bacteria.

28 Jan 2026

Why promising microbiome therapies rarely work in patients

Addressing the microbiome's translational gap involves understanding biological complexity and developing function-driven, patient-specific interventions.

8 Jan 2026

Bacterial enzyme linked to heart complications in pneumonia

Pneumonia is a disease that burdens the healthcare system with more that 1.2 million emergency room visits each year and more than 41,000 adult deaths in the United States.

4 Dec 2025