His lab was the first to develop and name assembloids: multi-unit self-organizing structures created in 3D cultures that allow for the study of human neural circuit and systems functions in vitro.

Combining regionalized neural organoids pioneered in the lab and studies with human forebrain assembloids[4] and transplantation, in 2024, Pașca developed a therapeutic for a severe genetic disorder called Timothy Syndrome,[5] which was published on the cover of Nature.

Pașca is a pioneering neuroscientist and stem cell biologist and holds the Kenneth T. Norris Endowed Professorship in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

[6] Pașca was listed among New York Times Visionaries in Medicine and Sciences, he is the recipient of the 2018 Vilcek Award for Creative Biomedical Promise from the Vlicek Foundation,[8] and the 2022 IBRO-Kemali Neuroscience Prize,[9] and he holds a Doctor Honoris Causa.

[14] In the final year of high school, he won a prize in the national chemistry Olympiad, earning a scholarship to attend the university of his choice in Romania.

[19] Pașca developed some of the early in-a-dish models of disease by deriving neurons from skin cells taken from patients with genetic forms of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

[1] Through application of various guidance molecules, Pașca ’s lab has developed about a dozen distinct neural organoids representing different brain areas, including the cerebral cortex, ventral forebrain, striatum, spinal cord, thalamus and others.

[24] These 3D brain tissue resemble specific regions of the nervous system[25][26] and his laboratory has maintained these cultures for over 1000 days in vitro and demonstrated advanced cell maturation, including astrocytes, into postnatal stages according to an intrinsic clock.

[3] By combining assembloids with CRISPR screening, Pașca lab mapped hundreds of autism-related genes to interneuron development stages, which also revealed an unknown role of the endoplasmic reticulum in migration.

[28] In 2024, his lab reported the first four-part assembloids that model the somatosensory pathway,[29] enabling activity monitoring of the entire circuit and response to noxious stimuli.

Human neurons displayed advanced maturation in vivo, responded to whisker stimulation and were capable of influencing the behavior of the rat in a reward task.

Pașca acknowledged that organoid transplantation offers great promise for characterizing human cellular processes in vivo but encourages caution and ethical consideration in pursuing these experiments.