Organs to Order

Science is often about spotting differences – but to see how a dramatic change turns out we usually need order and consistency at the beginning. Tiny lab-grown organs called organoids are an increasingly popular alternative to tricky or delicate measurements inside living patients. But growing organoids consistently is often difficult. Here a high-powered microscope scans through a tiny kidney organoid (highlighted in blue), one of many produced 'in bulk' using a method called UniMat. A 3D permeable membrane helps to soak clusters of human stem cells in cocktails of nurturing chemicals as they mature into organoids (developing red-coloured blood vessels here) in around three weeks. Researchers are now using these carefully managed organoids as models for testing drugs for diseases like polycystic kidney disease.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Dohui Kim and Hyeonji Lim, and colleagues
• Dept of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang; Dept of Biomedical Engineering, College of Information and Biotechnology, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, South Korea
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, October 2024