Living Human Brain Tissue, Reimagined
Brain BioLink is developing the UK’s first living nervous tissue pipeline, where samples remain viable, functional, and research-ready – enabling experiments impossible with post-mortem material.
A new generation of BioBanking from static specimens to dynamic biology
The Challenge
Traditional biobanks preserve biological samples by freezing or fixing them. While invaluable for many applications, whilst these approaches remain essential for neuroscience research, they cannot capture the dynamic biology of living human brain tissue, limiting the types of experiments that can be performed.
The Solution
Brain BioLink aims to preserve living human nervous tissue in a viable, functional state, enabling molecular, electrophysiological, imaging and pharmacological studies that may not be possible using conventional biobanked samples. This approach has the potential to generate richer data, deepen biological insight and create new opportunities for discovery.
Live Tissue Enables
Electrophysiological profiling of human neurons
Longitudinal molecular mapping across matched samples
Real-time drug response testing
Validation of biomarkers discovered in silico
Small sample
Big science
Just 1–5 mm³ of live brain tissue can be sliced into multiple sections, providing enough high-quality material for multiple research labs.
Salvaging valuable tissue
Valuable nervous tissue is discarded every day — not due to lack of demand, but due to the absence of a system to preserve and distribute it.
Brain BioLink will recover
Tissue removed during surgery access routes
Cerebrospinal fluid from routine lumbar punctures
Microfragments attached to neurosurgical needles
Built for Clinical Reality
No added burden to surgeons or OR teams
Protocols integrate directly into existing surgical workflows
Deployment-ready logistics and support staff
Designed for immediate uptake in hospitals
Two Principles Driving Tissue Innovation
Farewell, formaldehyde
So long, mice
Building the Future of Tissue Preservation & Analytics
Rapid Tissue Preservation
Living tissue will be transferred into optimised, oxygenated preservation media within minutes of surgical resection, minimising ischaemic injury and preserving cellular viability, physiology and molecular integrity from the very start.
Physiological Transport & Bioreactor Technologies
Novel transport chambers, continuous perfusion systems and controlled environmental monitoring will maintain physiological conditions throughout transport and experimentation, extending tissue viability and supporting reproducible functional studies.
Organotypic Human Brain Slice Culture
Living human brain slices can be maintained ex vivo for prolonged periods of time, enabling longitudinal experiments, repeated functional measurements and multi-day investigations of human brain biology.
Multi-modal Functional Analytics
A single donation can support electrophysiology, advanced imaging, molecular profiling, genomics, spatial biology and neuropathology, generating complementary datasets from the same tissue rather than a single endpoint measurement.
Just-in-Time Tissue Access
Instead of relying solely on frozen archives, Brain BioLink will coordinate the rapid distribution of living tissue to multiple researchers, maximising the scientific value of every donation and enabling parallel experiments across centres.
Future-ready Preservation
Matched living, frozen, fixed and biofluid samples will be preserved using standardised workflows, ensuring every donation remains compatible with both current and emerging research technologies.
Cryogenic Preservation
Current living tissue research is limited by the short lifespan of viable samples. Brain BioLink is exploring advanced cryogenic preservation strategies to extend tissue longevity, minimise biological loss and enable the reanimation of functional human brain tissue after preservation for future research.
Check our other Pillars
Clear Data Presentation
New Patient Consent
Cohort Collaboration
