Jay Gopalakrishnan serves as a group leader at the Laboratory for Centrosome and Cytoskeleton Biology, Heinrich Heine University. The laboratory's primary focus lies in translating fundamental research into clinical applications. Notably, it excels in creating patient-specific 3D tissues, including iPSC-derived human brain organoids—often referred to as "mini brains in a dish." These brain organoids play a pivotal role in addressing a fundamental question in neurobiology: the mechanisms underlying the maintenance of neural stem cells, which in turn regulate the proper structural development of the brain. To unravel this intricate process, the laboratory concentrates on modeling microcephaly, a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by reduced brain size.