Imagine yourself inside a clinical laboratory. In the corner, you spot a small petri dish. Atop it rests a curious kind of tissue sample. What you see before you is essentially a tiny pancreas. To be exact, it鈥檚 a pancreatic organoid. Unlike ordinary tissue samples that are extracted from a patient鈥檚 body, this miniature organ was grown here in the lab.
This pancreas has never been inside a person. Instead, it was harvested using cells taken from a pancreatic cancer patient. The organoid can provide unprecedented insight into the patient鈥檚 cancer case. It might tell us which chemotherapy treatments will work best for them. Someday, it may even be grown into a full-sized pancreas for an organ transplant. This is not something out of the latest David Cronenberg film. It鈥檚 a real biomedical breakthrough now making its way from research labs to clinics. 黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL) is an early pioneer of organoid research. In fact, the institution runs one of our country鈥檚 largest cancer organoid facilities.
On June 2, Dr. James Wells of the Cincinnati Children鈥檚 Hospital came to CSHL to speak about 鈥渦sing organoids to understand human disease and discover new therapeutics.鈥� Dr. Wells delivered the 44th annual Dorcas Cummings Memorial Lecture, held in conjunction with the . The lecture, part of CSHL鈥檚 Meetings & Courses Program, provides our local community the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research from a biomedical expert. Press play to hear more about organoids from this year鈥檚 featured speaker, Dr. James Wells.