The gastrointestinal microbiome holds valuable information that can help predict whether immunotherapy will be successful against melanoma. A new “gut-on-a-chip” is designed to do exactly that.
Tongue cancer cells can become resistant to chemotherapy under certain circumstances. Investigating these mechanisms, researchers shed light on promising avenues toward new treatments for this cancer.
When women are pregnant and nurse their babies, their bodies change to ensure the health of both mother and child. Researchers now surprisingly find that the intestine also changes completely.
A new type of pancreas organoid contains all key pancreatic cell types - acinar, ductal, and endocrine cells - allowing valuable new insights.
New insights into metastasis: Scientists created a 3D-printed model to mimic the specific conditions that spur the spread of cancer cells. This could help discover new screening and treatment options.
An “out-of-this-world” project has the potential to transform the future of tissue engineering and liver transplantation through research conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Researchers discovered a gene that might be a key factor in the progression of Huntington’s disease in organoids. The gene may contribute to brain abnormalities much earlier than previously thought.
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite with the ability to infect the brain, causing life-threatening diseases. Researchers now want to harness its properties to advance treatment of cognitive disorders.
US researchers applied an injectable new therapy, which harnesses fast-moving “dancing molecules,” to repair damaged human cartilage cells within just 4 hours.
Using vascular organoids derived from stem cells, researchers gain new insights into how diabetes damages blood vessels. This could lead to to the development of new treatments.
Why does the immune system sometimes fail to control the development of bowel cancer? UK and Dutch researchers discovered how cancer cells use a genetic "switch" to evade detection.
A new research project focuses on creating a 3D printed device to grow a human spinal cord organoid for the study of spinal cord injury and subsequent drug testing.
Chemotherapy kills cancer cells – but how? New research suggests that the mechanisms are different than previously understood. The finding will have implications for future cancer treatments.
Artificial cells to combat cancer: Research groups are working to create synthetic micro-organisms capable of detecting the presence of the disease and delivering anti-cancer therapies.
Primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) is a rare inherited multi-organ condition, which can lead to inflammation of the airways and infections. Now, scientists have found what causes PCD.
Using 3D bioprinting to accurately replicate the biological environment surrounding gastric cancer cells, researchers predicted a patient’s response to anticancer drugs during the preclinical stage.
A research team created "laboratory testicles" that may significantly advance understanding of the mechanisms involved in sex determination and provide solutions for male infertility.
Chemotherapy against cancer can lead to the generation of senescent tumour cells, which can help the tumour survive. A new immunotherapy approach to eliminate these cells shows promise in animal models.
Using lab-grown ‘mini-placentas’, researchers from the UK and Switzerland hope to get new insights on dangerous pregnancy complications, such as pre-eclampsia.
University of Basel scientists have discovered that high levels of the amino acid arginine drive metabolic reprogramming to promote tumor growth. This could lead to improved liver cancer treatment.
Researchers from the Organoid group (Hubrecht Institute) and UMC Utrecht have developed a biobank with organoids derived from patients with head and neck cancer (HNC).
Dutch scientists have revealed new scientific insights into the features of fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC), a rare type of childhood liver cancer.
Researchers have succeeded in introducing a vascular system into tiny living and beating model human heart muscles, an achievement which it's hoped will accelerate progress toward the ultimate goal of repairing damage from heart disease.
Researchers in Barcelona discovered the population of residual tumour cells responsible for the recurrence of colorectal cancer in other organs after removal of the primary tumour.
Researchers in Munich have developed a novel model system that can be used to precisely track the growth steps and three-dimensional arrangement of pancreatic cancer cells.
Researchers from the University of Bern and Inselspital provide an overview of the latest technologies in precision oncology. Translating these into clinical application is still a major challenge.
Two-dimensional (2D) cultured cell lines and animal models have been the principal research tools for the past decade, but have several shortcomings. Three-dimensional cell cultures, or organoids, show great promise here.
A research group from Kyoto developed two in vitro models to study SARS-CoV-2, and showed that they can be used for drug screening for infectious diseases including Covid-19.
Newly engineered in vitro tumour models open ways to better understand the crosstalk between liver cancer cells and their microenvironment, researchers from Singapore found.
When a virus makes its way into the body, one of the immune system’s first responders is a set of pathogen-removal cells called macrophages. But they don’t all target viruses in the same way.
A platform for studying how the human immune system responds to hepatitis C infection by combining microfluidic technology with liver organoids could speed the hunt for a vaccine.
Scientists use miniature brain models to understand how a mutated gene affects brain development.
Researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) develop a protocol to transplant 3D cellular structures that could regenerate damaged intestine.
In both the mice and organoids, cytokines suppressed tumor growth after treatment, and defense cells migrated to the brain region affected by the tumor, alerting the immune system to its existence.
A tiny ‘pop-up’ sensor monitors the electrical activity inside heart cells. The device could provide new insights into cardiac diseases, including myocardial infarction and arrhythmias.
The Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infects the kidneys and contributes to tissue scarring, as shown by researchers from Germany and the Netherlands.
The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 may be significantly better at evading vaccine-induced antibodies – but preliminary evidence suggests it is less likely to cause severe illness in the lungs.
Many of the organ systems found in animals exhibit highly complex structures, which are essential for their various functions. How such structures develop during embryonic development is a central question in biology. Physicists led by Erwin Frey (Professor of Statistical and Biological Physics at LMU Munich) and Andreas Bausch (Professor of Cellular Biophysics at the Technical University of…
A new technology that can study which therapies will work on patients with solid cancerous tumours has been developed by scientists at University College London (UCL). Researchers say the tool, which can rapidly test tumorous tissue against different treatments, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiotherapy, could be used by clinicians to pinpoint the best therapy for a particular patient.
Researchers from the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University of Bonn have examined the way in which SARS-CoV-2 reprograms the metabolism of the host cell in order to gain an overall advantage. According to their report in Nature Communications, the researchers were able to identify four substances which inhibit SARS-CoV-2…
Self-organizing heart organoids – developed at the Austrian Academy of Sciences – are also effective injury- and in vitro congenital disease models. These “cardioids” may revolutionize research into cardiovascular disorders and malformations of the heart. The results are published in the journal Cell.
Tiny 3D models that mimic vital aspects of the human nervous system have been developed in a step that could accelerate drug research for neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS). The millimetre-wide models – created using stem cells from human skin samples – will be used to study myelin, an insulating substance that helps nerve cells communicate with each other. Researchers…
Scientists have used a technique to grow bile duct organoids – often referred to as ‘mini-organs’ – in the lab and shown that these can be used to repair damaged human livers. This is the first time that the technique has been used on human organs. The research paves the way for cell therapies to treat liver disease – in other words, growing ‘mini-bile ducts’ in the lab as…
‘Mini-lungs’ grown from tissue donated to Cambridge hospitals has provided a team of scientists from South Korea and the UK with important insights into how COVID-19 damages the lungs. Writing in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers detail the mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection and the early innate immune response in the lungs.
Researchers of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have cultured so-called intestinal organoids from human intestinal tissue, which is a common byproduct when performing bowel surgery.
Scientists have generated accurate replications of human retinas in culture that can be used to pinpoint the specific types of cells affected by genetic eye diseases. The culmination of a six-year effort, this achievement will accelerate progress in developing new therapies and was reported in Cell by a team led by Botond Roska at the Institute for Molecular and Clinical Ophthalmology Basel (IOB)…
Scientists combined induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and their deep knowledge in the bioengineering of human organoids to for the first time bioengineer the human brain at the macroscale level with comprehensive network function
Michigan State University researchers have created for the first time a miniature human heart model in the laboratory, complete with all primary heart cell types and a functioning structure of chambers and vascular tissue.
Scientists have found that organoids (tiny tissue cultures made from human cells that simulate whole organs) known as “mini-brains” can be infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
One of the main features of colorectal cancer is that there are considerable differences between the tumors of individual patients - at genetic level and hence in terms of the response to treatment too. Researchers from the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) have developed a method that allows these differences to be identified more effectively.
An international team led by University of British Columbia (UBC) researcher Dr. Josef Penninger has found a trial drug that effectively blocks the cellular door SARS-CoV-2 uses to infect its hosts. The findings, published in Cell, hold promise as a treatment capable of stopping early infection of the novel coronavirus that, as of April 2, has affected more than 981,000 people and claimed the…
A study led by scientists from Cornell University provides important new insights into a common and deadly type of gastric cancer. Incidence of this cancer, called gastric squamous-columnar junction (SCJ) cancer, also known as gastroesophageal cancer, rose 2.5 times in the United States between the 1970s and 2000s, while cases of all gastric cancers have decreased by more than 80% since the…
Research that might lead to new treatment options and longer survival for patients with glioblastoma – a malignant and particularly invasive type of brain tumour – is ongoing at ZHT, the Centre for Brain Tumours, and the Wilhelm Sander Neuro-oncology Treatment Unit at University Hospital Regensburg, which form one of the largest and most modern facilities for brain tumour treatment in…
The results of a major study across 195 countries, presented at UEG Week Barcelona 2019, indicate that global death rates for pancreatic cancer and incidence rates for colorectal cancer both increased by 10% between 1990 and 2017. The Global Burden of Disease study, is the first to provide comprehensive worldwide estimates of the burden, epidemiological features and risk factors of a number of…
Twenty people die every day waiting for an organ transplant in the U.S., and while more than 30,000 patients now receive transplants annually, another 113,000 are currently on organ waitlists. Many people see artificially grown human organs as the Holy Grail for resolving the organ shortage, and advances in 3D printing have led to a boom in using that technique to build living tissue constructs…
The key challenges and opportunities surrounding High-Content Screening have been outlined in a presentation to leading scientists and technologists at a major lab conference. Speaking at the recent SLASEurope 2019 event in Barcelona, Professor Matthias Nees from the Institute of Biomedicine in the Department of Biology at the University of Turku, Finland, outlined the potential of High-Content…
Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered how regenerative capacity of intestinal epithelium declines when we age. Targeting of an enzyme that inhibits stem cell maintaining signaling rejuvenates the regenerative potential of an aged intestine. This finding may open ways to alleviate age-related gastrointestinal problems, reduce side-effects of cancer treatments, and reduce…
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) and the Mannheim University Medical Center have now discovered that a certain group of cancer drugs (MEK Inhibitors) activates the cancer-promoting Wnt signalling pathway in colorectal cancer cells. This can lead to the accumulation of tumor cells with stem cell characteristics that are resistant to many…
How can we detect the first signs of disease as early as possible? Could closer investigation at the cellular level help to quickly prevent disease progression through appropriate treatment? The European Union is now investing a million euros over a one-year period to devise the plan for a fundamentally new approach to understanding the constant changes within cells and their relationships to one…
Scientists working to bioengineer the entire human gastrointestinal system in a laboratory now report using pluripotent stem cells to grow human esophageal organoids.
Austrian researchers have accomplished an astounding feat: They created organoids that mimic the onset of brain cancer. This method not only sheds light on the complex biology of human brain tumors but could also pave the way for new medical applications.
A multidisciplinary team of scientists share recent advancements in innovative in-vitro cancer biology methods for screening drug-like molecules in cancer tissue relevant models in a new report published online ahead-of-print at SLAS Discovery. Entitled Advanced Development of Primary Pancreatic Organoid Tumor Models for High-Throughput Phenotypic Drug Screening, the report can be accessed for…
Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have successfully developed a method to grow hairy skin from mouse pluripotent stem cells - a discovery that could lead to new approaches to model disease and new therapies for the treatment of skin disorders and cancers.
Mount Sinai researchers have discovered that normal immune cells called macrophages, which reside in healthy breast tissue surrounding milk ducts, play a major role in helping early breast cancer cells leave the breast for other parts of the body, potentially creating metastasis before a tumor has even developed, according to a study published in Nature Communications. The macrophages play a role…
Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have identified cells in the upper digestive tract that can give rise to Barrett’s esophagus, a precursor to esophageal cancer. The discovery of this “cell of origin” promises to accelerate the development of more precise screening tools and therapies for Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma, the fastest growing form of…
Professor Hans Clevers, researcher and group leader at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, invented the organoids, a ground-breaking new technique to grow new ‘organs’ and to test medication.
Researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center grew functional stomach and intestinal tissues to study diseases and new drugs. They use pluripotent stem cells to generate human stomach tissues in a petri dish that produce acid and digestive enzymes.
Scientists from the Hubrecht Institute and the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMC Utrecht) have developed a cell culture model of human colon cancer progression. This model mimics the situation in patients more closely than any other colon cancer model so far. It enables researchers to study processes involved in colon cancer development and find new cancer drugs.
Researchers at the Hubrecht Institute and the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht successfully developed a culturing system for human liver stem cells as well as stem cells from pancreatic cancer. They describe the development of these culturing systems in two articles in this week’s edition of Cell magazine.