Dr. Sergiu Pașcă

So we know it's very important.

So we've been trying to rebuild it in a dish.

So we now can build some of the circuits.

We call them loop assembloids.

where essentially you can put a cortex, and we've made the striatum, and then you put parts of the mesencephalon and the midbrain and the thalamus.

And the cells connect in a loop, and now they have activity.

So you can now induce mutations at various levels of the circuit and see where is that mutation most important.

So let's say, if you were to develop a gene therapy, where would you deliver that gene, right?

If you were to choose, if you can deliver it in the entire brain.

So these are really, so like early days, but I think it can be applied.

And I think in general,

You know, you were mentioning this before about autism, right?

And this, you know, even the ability of sort of like communicating these disorders or how much awareness there is, right?

I think when I refer to autism, I generally refer to the severe forms and profound autism.

And as we discussed earlier, there's certainly a continuum.

And there are many individuals that are high functioning, right?

They have high skills.

They may lack certain social skills, but they have other skills.

They're different.

They're productive in society.