Applications of Human Intestinal Organoid Cultures in Drug Discovery
Human intestinal organoids provide a scalable and highly predictive model system for studying the effects of novel therapeutics in vitro. Intestinal organoids contain the relevant cell types that constitute the intestinal epithelium and, as such, can be maintained in various states of proliferation or differentiation. These physiologically relevant models reveal the toxicity of compounds that can not be seen in Caco-2 cells, which are frequently used to model the intestine during drug development programs.
In this webinar, Danny Leung and Dr. Victoria Conlin from STEMCELL Technologies describe, in detail, what intestinal organoids are, how they mimic the immunocytochemistry and morphology of the human gut epithelium, and how to use organoids for drug screening. They also discuss the intestinal organoid assays offered by Contract Assay Services (CAS) at STEMCELL Technologies.
Modeling Host-Microbe Interactions Using Human Intestinal Organoids
A common challenge to studying host-microbe interactions is the lack of optimal in vitro culture systems to recapitulate in vivo infection. In this virtual paper presentation, Dr. Devanjali Dutta discusses her research using human intestinal and lung organoids to study Cryptosporidium infection. Cryptosporidium is a protozoan parasite, a leading cause of diarrhea, and a major cause of child mortality worldwide. Dr. Dutta describes how she—and her colleagues in the lab of Dr. Hans Clevers—infected intestinal and lung organoids derived from healthy human donors with Cryptosporidium. In their paper*, organoids are presented as a physiologically relevant in vitro model to study Cryptosporidium and other pathogenic infections.
Dr. Devanjali Dutta is a Postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Hans Clever at the Hubrecht Institute.
*Heo I, Dutta D et al. (2018) Nat Microbiol. 3(7):814–23.
Organoid Expert Panel
What could organoids do for your research? In this in-depth panel discussion, STEMCELL's organoid experts answer questions submitted by you. Topics include evaluating organoids as tissue and disease models, variability in organoid cultures, and future outlooks in translational and clinical applications.