Organoid Technology

About the Technology

Under particular laboratory conditions, with the right growth factors, stem cells can follow their own genetic programming to self-renew, proliferate, and differentiate into multiple cell types that self-organize to form small structures, called organoids.

The cornerstone of the technology was the groundbreaking work of Hans Clevers and his co-workers who were the first to demonstrate that intestinal organoids could be derived from LGR5 expressing intestinal adult stem cells. Advances in organoid technology have created a powerful 3D model to recapitulate the cellular heterogeneity, structure, and functions of the primary tissues.

Organoids can be derived from either embryonic stem cells (ESCs), induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), or neonatal or adult stem cells (ASCs). Typically, organoids derived from adult stem cells begin to develop rapidly in the laboratory, providing a culture system for research and drug testing within a few weeks.

Advantages

Organoids provide a model for human disease research that reveals the full complexity of human epithelial cell interactions in each tissue, capturing the heterogeneity and complexity of people in a way that other in-vitro cell culture and animal models, the traditional tools of medical research, can only partially accomplish.

Physiological 3D architecture

Represent all cellular components of the primary tissue

Demonstrate genetic stability over long-term culturing

Long-term expansion capacity

An unlimited number of organoids can be derived from single stem cells

Biobanking

Amenable to essentially all currently available cell biological and molecular analysis techniques

Applications

Developmental Biology: Organoids can be used to understand the principles of development, homeostasis and regeneration.

Drug discovery: Organoid biobanks could be used to identify drugs effective against a broad spectrum of disease phenotypes.

Disease modeling: Organoids derived from patient stem cells represent useful tools for the study of disease mechanisms because they replicate the complexity of the in vivo disease phenotype while still retaining the accessibility of in vitro systems.

Toxicology: Organoids can be used to identify possible adverse effect of drugs.

Infectious diseases: The 3D organoid technology offers excellent models for the study of host-pathogen interaction in different human infectious diseases involving viruses, bacteria, and protozoan parasites.

Regenerative medicine: Organoids are emerging as a promising source of transplantable tissues and functional cell types for cell therapy in regenerative medicine.

Personalized medicine: Patient-specific organoids can help identify the best drug for each patient.