Organoids will form an increasingly crucial element of personalised medicine. Drug screening for personalised medicine is already a major application in cancer therapy.25 Patient-derived tumoroids are a more precise way for clinicians to screen drugs to determine the most efficacious treatment.26 Correlations between organoid responses and patient responses are increasing; a recent study used organoids to test growth-blocking antibodies and prevent metastasis, an approach that is going into phase 1 trials.27
Beyond cancer therapies, organoids could help predict toxicity of drugs, and also whether a drug will work given a particular individual's genetic makeup. Because they largely preserve the genetic and functional traits of the original internal organs, they are useful for diagnostic purposes, and for predicting patients' responses to pharmaceuticals. Immune disorders could also be open to new investigations.
Organoids may also be the future of regenerative medicine, as bespoke organs and tissues would not be subject to the immunological or ethical complications of transplant organs. Organoid culture allows for the generation of specific cell types that were previously impossible in 2D cultures, for example, hepatocytes.
