Human stem cells can be cultured in vitro to form immature tissues or organs- organoids – in 3D. These are already being used to explore the basic biology of developmental disorders, degenerative and other disorders. Excitingly, they are also proving valuable for screening the efficacy of potential new therapies in a more clinically relevant way than animal models or 2D cell cultures.
As organoids can be generated by reprogramming cells from accessible tissues, such as the skin, organoids such as the brain, intestine, kidney, lung, stomach, and liver have already been developed, and research continues apace to generate other types.
The following articles illustrate just a few applications in development, as well as some potential future ethical considerations;
Brain Organoids:
Brain development is a remarkable self-organization process in which cells proliferate, differentiate, migrate, and wire to form functional neural circuits.
The complexity and delicacy of human brain make it challenging to recapitulate its development, function and disorders. Brain organoids derived from human pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) provide a new tool to model both normal and pathological human brain, and greatly enhance our ability to study brain biology and diseases.
