Tissue organoids: Liver

Abstract

The development of novel and consistent biologic surrogates for drug discovery, toxicology, and cancer research is presently intense and involves a growing number of research groups and institutions around the world. The Twilight of the days of immortalized cell lines as the workhorse of most of our drug development and cancer research efforts seem now to be heading to their end with the introduction of body-on-a-chip platforms, bioengineered tissues and stem cell organoids. In this chapter, we describe the fundamental work and the different strategies that lead to some of the breakthroughs in the generation of hepatic tissue ex vivo. Lastly, we define its increasing use and applications by pharmaceutical industry and research laboratories.