How do developing spinal cords choose 'heads' or 'tails'?

(Gladstone Institutes) Scientists at Gladstone Institutes have created an organoid--a three-dimensional cluster of cells grown in the lab--that mimics the earliest developmental steps of the nervous system in embryos. The organoid is the first to show how human spinal cord cells become oriented in an embryo, and could shed light on how environmental exposures or toxins can make this process go awry, causing early miscarriages and birth defects.