Advancements in cell culture and reprogramming technologies have allowed an increased use of organoids to study a variety of biological processes. The use of stem cell-derived organoids provides three-dimensional in vitro cellular models which accurately recapitulate features of complex multicellular organs and early stages of development. Increasingly, organoids are also being used to understand a range of human diseases, from infectious diseases to noncommunicable diseases.
Advances in induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technologies are allowing researchers to establish iPSC-derived organoids from patient biopsies. These organoids will not only allow to investigate the causes and development of diseases but will also pave way to develop and test new therapeutics. Furthermore, the use of patient biopsy samples to generate organoids will be invaluable in developing personalized treatment or understanding rare genetic disorders. Importantly, progress in organoid technology will also reduce our need to rely on animal models, which often poorly recapitulate human disease.
Given the importance of the field, BMC Molecular and Cell Biology invited submissions to our new Collection. Topics of interest included, but were not limited to, the following:
- Use of patient-derived organoids to model human disease
- Development of methods to generate and maintain organoids
- Methods to improve complexity of multicellular organoids
- The use of organoids to understand early development stages
- Generation of iPSCs and iPSC-derived organoids and improvement of reprogramming technologies
- Use of organoids to understand responses to diseases
- Use of organoids in Personalized Medicine
- Organoids and development of new therapeutic agents
Image credit: Dr. Torsten Wittmann / Science Photo Library