Rethinking organoid technology through bioengineering

Abstract

In recent years considerable progress has been made in the development of faithful procedures for human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) differentiation. An important step in this direction has also been the derivation of organoids. This technology relays on traditional three-dimensional (3D) culture techniques that exploit cell-autonomous self-organization responses of hPSCs with minimal control over the external inputs supplied to the system. The convergence of stem cell biology and bioengineering offers the possibility to provide these stimuli in a controlled fashion, resulting in the development of naturally inspired approaches to overcome major challenges of this nascent technology. Based on the current developments, we here emphasize the achievements and remaining challenges of bringing together hPSCs-organoid differentiation with bioengineering and ethics. This Review underlies the need for providing engineering solutions to gain control regarding self-organization and functionality of hPSC-derived organoids. We expect that this knowledge will guide the community to generate higher-grade hPSC-derived organoids for further applications in developmental biology, drug screening, disease modeling and personalized medicine.