Abstract

Tissue Organoids For Disease Modeling and Therapy Development

Shay Soker, Professor, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

Three dimensional tissue equivalents (organoids) replicate native human tissue structure and function and can be studied in vitro for several weeks to allow intensive investigations. Besides their advantages in drug toxicity testing and for development of new drugs, the human tissue organoid platform serves as a model system to explore human tissue development and disease. Our recent research was focused on the use of tissue organoids to study human development and congenital diseases as well as other common diseases such as tissue fibrosis and cancer. Once a disease model is established, patient-specific (personalized) therapies can be realized as pre-clinical testing platform.