A 'village in a dish' could tell doctors which bipolar medicine will work for you

A medicine that steadies one person's bipolar disorder can fail another — or harm them — and doctors usually find out by trial and error. Dr Drew Neavin at the University of Queensland grows stem cells from scores of different people together in a single dish — a 'village' — to see how each person's cells respond, a method that makes large studies faster and cheaper and could lead to simple tests matching patients to the right drug. She is one of two winners of the 2026 Metcalf Prizes for Stem Cell Research, announced by the National Stem Cell Foundation of Australia; each receives $60,000 (Australian dollars, about $39,000). The other winner's work grows beating miniature hearts to find cures for inherited heart disease — personal medicine, built from patients' own cells.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation