Organoid models

Creating functional organoids from iPSCs is a step toward growing full sized functional transplantable organs.  But thus far, organoids of the intestines, lung, liver, kidney and brain lack the cellular complexity—i.e. they are limited in developing blood vessels and immune cells—that would take the next step in scale.  This piece describes how scientists at the University of Würzburg have produced mesodermal progenitor cells from iPSCs and then mixed them with tumor cells and brain stem cells.  “This mixture grew to form complex three-dimensional tumour or brain organoids in the Petri dish featuring functional blood vessels, connective tissue, and in the case of the brain tissue, also brain-specific immune cells, the so-called microglia cells.”  MORE

Image Credit: Institut für Anatomie und Zellbiologie