Research on disease and treatment pathways has been hampered by the fact that cultured cell lines do not respond to interventions in the same way that cells do in their natural environment of complex three-dimensional tissues. This is part of the reason why promising in vitro studies must currently be followed up by animal studies, especially to test drugs.

Brain organoids have already shed light on the risk genes that contribute to autism¹ and how Zika inhibits brain development;² they can now be probed for electrical activity in a manner analogous to actual human brains.³ Organoids from other tissues have been used for drug screening,⁴ while “tumouroids” have yielded better cancer models.⁵ The future of personalised organoids offers a way to predict treatment outcomes, avoid toxicities and develop targeted therapies.

As yet, organoids remain primitive versions of real organs, crudely recreating their basic features and functions. However, rapid advances in enabling technologies are allowing them to become far more complex, with greater standardisation of procedures facilitating easily replicated results.⁶ With further advances, we should be able to use “embryoids” to observe post-implantation developmental events outside of the womb, making it possible to probe fundamental principles of human development and disease.⁷ We will also test tumouroids to find the exact medicine that will best kill tumours in the patient. Eventually, we may be able to generate organs for transplantation.⁸

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Organoids are simplified versions of real organs that have the potential to assist in a number of key scientific areas. One is Foundational research: growing organoids in the lab will provide insights into genetics, foetal development and some disease pathways, among other fields. By creating Hybrid organoids that combine biological material from humans with other animal biology or silicon technology, researchers are able to investigate human biology in entirely novel ways. As well as generalised insights, the opportunity to generate Personalised organoids will eventually mean that an individual’s cancer treatment can be checked ahead of administration, and organ transplants can use tissue derived from the patient, avoiding the risk of rejection and the need for immunosuppressive drugs. In order for this potential to be realised, a number of Enabling technologies will have to be developed, including scaleable and automatable manufacturing protocols.