Hans Clevers, the head of the Hubrecht Laboratory in Utrecht, the Netherlands, has pioneered
the development of organoids, miniature versions of human organs that are transforming science and medicine.
Not exact matches
This is an obvious hurdle for longtime study» if the goal is to follow brain
development for longer than a trimester or two prenatally, the stage at which the current crop
of brain
organoids start to wither.
«The human
organoids are good for studying the very early stages
of brain
development, but may not reveal much about later, more mature stages on which things like sociality depend,» says John Mason at the University
of Edinburgh, UK.
«The
organoids are good for studying the very early stages
of brain
development, but may not reveal much about later stages on which things like sociality depend.»
«What our
organoids are good for is to model the
development of the brain and to study anything that causes a defect in
development,» Knoblich says.
Researchers modeled kidney
development and injury in kidney
organoids (shown here), demonstrating that the
organoid culture system can be used to study mechanisms
of human kidney
development and toxicity.
Now he and his team are putting cells from human brain tumors into the
organoids, which have reached the level
of development and complexity
of a 20 - week - old human fetus's, to see whether they reprise what happens in patients.
Garcez and her colleagues at the Instituto D'Or in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil are starting experiments in which they will infect so - called cerebral
organoids — tiny models
of the developing human brain — with Zika virus and see whether their
development is affected.
«For example, there is a huge amount
of interest and excitement globally in growing cerebral
organoids» — miniature brain - like organs that can be studied in laboratory experiments — «from stem cells to model human brain
development and disease mechanisms.
Scientists at the Institute
of Reconstructive Neurobiology at the University
of Bonn applied a recent
development in stem cell research to tackle this limitation: they grew three - dimensional
organoids in the cell culture dish, the structure
of which is incredibly similar to that
of the human brain.
Biologists are building banks
of «
organoids», and learning a lot about human
development on the way
Part
of the challenge to identifying the correct genetic and molecular programming to coax hPSCs in to colonic
organoids has been a lack
of data about embryonic
development of the organ, according to the authors.
The new cellular and molecular data uncovered in the current study will be «exploited in the future to further improve liver bud
organoids» and «precisely recapitulate differentiation
of all cell types» in fetal human
development, the authors write.
AMSBIO has introduced two new products to assist the increasing number
of scientists adopting
organoid culture as a physiologically relevant model for organ
development
Stem cell technology has advanced so much that scientists can grow miniature versions
of human brains — called
organoids, or mini-brains if you want to be cute about it — in the lab, but medical ethicists are concerned about recent
developments in this field involving the growth
of these tiny brains in other animals.
However, despite its marked promise for disease modeling,
development of novel therapies, and regenerative medicine, stem cell derived
organoid technology faces many remaining challenges.
The work takes a step toward using brain
organoids to study complexities
of human brain
development and disease that can't be investigated with current techniques.
She disproved the theory that neurons are assigned a certain identity in the embryo, discovered that neurons don't all myelinate their axons in the same way, and is now a pioneer in creating brain
organoids to study basic aspects
of development.
Using
organoids, scientists are testing cancer drugs, determining the effects
of toxins, and studying the
development of neurological diseases.
The new biomedical innovation course, which will take place at the laboratory's Maine campus, is geared to advanced graduate students, post-doctoral trainees and researchers at all levels who want to learn the basics
of organoid culture and the most recent
developments in the
organoid field.
Yet while autism begins during brain
development, and it makes sense that a developing
organoid could serve as a model, looking at diseases that affect people toward the end
of their lives would seem more difficult.
Researchers had developed the technologies needed to create
organoids years before — how to grow cells in culture, how to isolate stem cells from human tissue, and how to coax the stem cells, undifferentiated and immature, to become specific types
of cells at later stages
of development.
Since the first
organoids were created less than a decade ago, their uncanny ability to mimic in miniature the
development of real organs in the human body has caused a quiet revolution in many areas
of medical research.
A Science piece spotlights Clevers»
development of a test in which
organoids can be grown from tissue samples taken from patients.
SEngine Precision Medicine, instead, is pursuing an innovative approach for the
development of novel targets and drugs for cancer therapy by using primary patient
organoids initially derived for our diagnostic assay.
Rodent models can't capture the years long path
of human brain
development, but 3D human
organoids now give researchers a window into later stages
of development of our burgeoning central nervous system.
Organoids give us a singular and brand new window into human developmental biology, so understanding human - specific features
of organ
development and function may help us uncover new regenerative therapies to improve people's lives.