Algae-powered Brain

The heart of this tadpole is being injected with photosynthetic green algae that can be seen pumping through the animal’s arteries. Yes, scientists really are injecting plant life into frogs and, yes, it might be the wackiest experiment ever. But, there’s method in this apparent madness because, in response to light, the algae make oxygen that can keep the frog’s brain functioning even when environmental oxygen is low. To adapt such a strategy to humans would require not only the algae to be made safe enough to prevent deadly blood vessel blockages or immune reactions, but also the ability to illuminate tissues deep in the body. As such, it's unlikely to be used anytime soon to treat heart attacks, stroke, COVID, or other conditions causing hypoxia. While researchers work through these sizeable wrinkles, however, the little green cells might be useful for prolonging viability of tissues and organs in culture.

Written by Ruth Williams

Ruth Williams

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Ruth is a freelance science journalist based in the US. She's a regular correspondent for The Scientist, and her work has appeared in The Lancet, Nature, Scientific American Mind, BBC Focus and elsewhere. Twitter @rooph

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• Video from work by Suzan Özugur and colleagues
• Department Biology II, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Planegg, Germany
• Image originally published with Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in iScience, October 2021