Building pancreatic organoids to aid drug development

Comment on: gutjnl-2016-312423 ‘Human pluripotent stem cell-derived acinar/ductal organoids generate human pancreas upon orthotopic transplantation and allow disease modelling’ Much of our understanding of human diseases comes from the study of model systems such as cell lines. Cell lines are derived from cells that have obtained the property to proliferate indefinitely, often by immortalisation or isolation from cancerous tissues. They have the great advantage that they are easy to work with and can be kept in culture almost endlessly. The disadvantage is that they have lost the genetic signature of healthy primary cells, thwarting the interpretation of test results. This has led to the search for human cell systems that accurately recapitulate healthy or diseased human primary tissues. Advances in stem cell technology have made it possible to create, maintain and expand induced or adult stem cells while they retain multilineage potential. This has led to the development of...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Commentary Source Type: research