Spring 2022 Seminar Series: Tissue Organoids as Models for Organ Development and Disease

Abstract: Three dimensional tissue equivalents (organoids) replicate native human tissue structure and function and can be studied in vitro for several weeks to allow intensive investigations. Besides their advantages in drug toxicity testing and for development of new drugs, the human tissue organoid platform serves as a model system to explore human tissue development and disease. Our recent research was focused on the use of tissue organoids to study human development and congenital diseases as well as other common diseases such as tissue fibrosis and cancer. Once a disease model is established, patient-specific (personalized) therapies can be realized as pre-clinical testing platform.

Bio: Dr. Soker is a Professor of Regenerative Medicine, Biomedical Engineering and Cancer Biology at the Wake Forest School of Medicine and the Chief Science Program Officer at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Dr. Soker’s research focuses on multiple aspects of regenerative medicine including identification of new sources of cells and scaffolds for tissue engineering, tissue neovascularization, real- time imaging technologies and fabrication of bioengineered tissues as developmental and disease models. Specific examples are the use of tissue-derived extracellular matrices as scaffolds for whole organ bioengineering. His lab has published a seminal manuscript describing, for the first time, the making of functional small human livers from liver progenitor cells. Using a similar approach, his lab developed small, 3D tissue constructs (organoids) for testing of new drugs without the need to tests in animals. The organoids are used to study human organogenesis in vitro and disease modeling, including tissue fibrosis and cancer. This technology will allow to develop new drugs to treat many diseases and test them on cells derived from individual patients.