Hello and welcome to the first installment of a new series: the Lab Journal quick facts!
These are short bits of information associated with infographics that I produce for my portfolio. The first one is all about organoids and their culture, please enjoy!
All images were made by hand in Blender 3D and Adobe Illustrator.
Quick facts about organoids.
Organoid culture is a technique that enables the growth and development of miniature organ-like structures from stem cells or tissue samples. Compared to traditional 2D cell culture, organoid culture provides a more physiologically relevant model of human tissues and organs, allowing for a deeper understanding of their structure, function, and disease mechanisms.
Human organoid culture has several advantages over spheroid culture, including the ability to recapitulate the complexity and heterogeneity of human tissues, the maintenance of tissue-specific architecture and function, and the potential for long-term expansion and manipulation.
Organoids have emerged as a powerful tool in scientific research, particularly in the study of diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, and infection. They can be used to model tissue development and regeneration, drug screening and discovery, and personalized medicine.
State-of-the-art organoid applications in scientific research and drug development include the development of brain organoids to study neurodevelopmental disorders, the use of intestinal organoids to model gut diseases and test drug efficacy, and the creation of tumor organoids to identify new therapeutic targets and test drug response.
Organoids also have the potential to revolutionize regenerative medicine, allowing for the generation of patient-specific tissues and organs for transplantation. Overall, organoid culture represents a promising approach to bridge the gap between basic research and clinical applications.
References:
- Clevers, H. (2016). Modeling Development and Disease with Organoids. Cell, 165(7), 1586-1597. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.05.082
- Lancaster, M. A., & Knoblich, J. A. (2014). Organogenesis in a dish: Modeling development and disease using organoid technologies. Science, 345(6194), 1247125. doi: 10.1126/science.1247125
- Drost, J., & Clevers, H. (2018). Organoids in cancer research. Nature Reviews Cancer, 18(7), 407-418. doi: 10.1038/s41568-018-0007-6
- Fatehullah, A., Tan, S. H., & Barker, N. (2016). Organoids as an in vitro model of human development and disease. Nature Cell Biology, 18(3), 246-254. doi: 10.1038/ncb3312
- Czerniecki, S. M., Cruz, N. M., Harder, J. L., Menon, R., Annis, J., Otto, E. A., … & Gharavi, A. G. (2018). High-throughput screening enhances kidney organoid differentiation from human pluripotent stem cells and enables automated multidimensional phenotyping. Cell Stem Cell, 22(6), 929-940. doi: 10.1016/j.stem.2018.05.002