thank you very much
I’d like you Tarrance in the audience to
imagine for a moment you have a sick
child and you have to bring them to the
hospital and after some pretty bad
poking and prodding and tests the
physicians come back to you and tell you
that one of your child’s organs is
failing and then they tell you you may
have to wait years to get a replacement
organ and that this is a
life-threatening situation that your
child may not survive this devastating
situation happens every day to many many
people in fact in the United States
alone 130,000 people are waiting for an
organ transplant but only one out of
four is going to get one this year so
now I want you to think about a future
scenario and this time after all the
tests the doctors come back and they’re
smiling and they say not to worry go
away go back home for a couple of months
and then when you come back we will have
grown a brand new organ that’s specific
now scientists can’t can’t grow whole
organs yet but they have been able to
turn stem cells into small clusters of
cells that make insulin and they’re
testing these in people with diabetes
and they’ve made simple sheets of cells
from stem cells that they’re being
tested and in certain forms of blindness
however to make whole three-dimensional
organs is going to take a vast
collaboration across big areas of
science and medicine now I’m the chief
scientific officer at the center for
stem cell and organoid medicine and
that’s exactly what a very talented and
collaborative group of scientists
physicians bio engineers and Industry
parker’s work on every day our goal is
to make organs for transplantation and
while we can’t do that yet some
breakthrough discoveries over the past
few years I think have us well on our
way in 2009 my lab discovered how to
turn stem cells
which groweth simple flat sheets of
cells into three-dimensional organ like
structures that are called organoids now
organoids have many similar properties
to real organs except they’re much
smaller about the size of a pea but you
can make organoids from any person in
this audience or any patient in the
clinic starting from your own stem cells
this really I think is one of the first
organized centers of its kind how did we
figure out how to do this well we
learned from nature and what we learned
is that we all come from a single cell
that divides and forms smaller parts
that get assembled into larger parts
that make up the organs of the body and
my lab has spent two decades trying to
figure out how organs form using animals
and what we learn from this is that we
all form in a stepwise process starting
from smaller parts and what we do is now
use this information from the laboratory
as a blueprint or a roadmap to
bioengineer tissues in a petri dish and
we start with pluripotent stem cells
which are very special kinds of stem
cells because they can become any cell
or tissue type in your body
and they can be made from any one of you
in the laboratory and what we learn from
stem cells is that organs are assembled
from smaller parts and we replicate this
process in the petri dish first by
bombarding stem cells with bio chemicals
and coaxing them into forming these
smaller parts which we then help guide
into larger and more functional organs
now of course you all know that organs
are highly complex and all the little
parts have to be assembled in exactly
the right way for the organ to form
properly take the intestine for example
the intestine is made up of dozens of
different cell types and it’s assembled
in many different layers
the inner layer absorbs the nutrients in
the food that we eat but that layer
surrounded by layers of muscle layers of
nerves even layers of blood vessels and
they have to come together exactly in
the right way not just to absorb the
food that we eat but to push the food we
eat from one direction all the way down
through the other direction and of
course we all know what happens when
that process goes in Revere’s it never
ends well now the organoids that we can
make in the lab actually have many of
these layers of complexity they have an
inner layer that can absorb nutrients
they’re surrounded by layers of muscle
we’ve even engineered them to have
layers of nerves these things even
contract in a petri dish these really
are highly complex bioengineered tissues
now my lab can now make organoids from
any of the digestive disease any of the
digestive organs in your body we can
make stomach organoids it secrete acid
intestinal organs that absorb nutrients
and our organoid Center is expanding
into other organs like the kidney the
heart even the brain now none of these
organized are ready for transplantation
therapies yet but they are incredibly
useful in it as patient avatars now what
do I mean by that we’re all different we
even get diseases differently even a
common cold might affect me in the chest
and somebody else in the head and how we
respond to drugs is very differently
it’s very different between one person
to the next take cancer for example a
drug might cure cancer in one patient
but cause great harm in another patient
so my lab is growing organoids from
cancer patients and giving them to to
cancer biologists who are now using them
to test whether a drug might actually
work on that type of cancer for that
patient in the Netherlands there using
organoids
from patients to test experimental drugs
for diseases like cystic fibrosis where
they actually test the drug on the
patient organoid first in the lab and
then if it works they use it on the
patient with a much higher degree of
success but I think to me one of the
coolest ways we’re using organoids
is to diagnose patients with really
complicated diseases particularly when
the normal barrage of tests fail to
uncover the cause we had a patient come
into the Medical Center with a highly
complicated disease affecting the
pancreas the stomach and the intestine
and while the physicians did a great job
figuring out what was wrong with the
pancreas none of these really invasive
tests were it
to figure out what was wrong with the
stomach and the intestine so a scientist
in my lab actually made organoids from
that patient and in the laboratory
figured out what was wrong with the
patient and now we’re working with a
team of physicians to come up with a
brand new treatment strategy that is
now of course what we want and what what
we all want are to be able to take these
and use them for transplantation based
therapies in the future and of course
that is in the future but what are we
doing today to make that future a
reality well basically we’re trying to
make our organoids bigger more
functional more like real organs so to
make them bigger we’re trying a bunch of
different things one thing we’re trying
is we’re working with engineers to grow
to to make chambers in which we can grow
our organoids bigger if you remember at
the beginning of my talk I told you our
organoids were only the size of a pea
now we can grow organoids as big as your
thumb we’re also trying to make them
more functional tissues so we’re
engineering in complexity like nerves
muscles blood vessels even immune cells
and lastly we’re working hand in glove
in close collaboration with surgeons to
test whether our Bionic bioengineered
organ tissues can actually cure disease
first in an animal model but of course
with the ultimate goal that nobody
should be told that they may die waiting
so I get asked all the time why on earth
did you become a scientific researcher
and for me it was pretty hardwired you
know it was pretty easy I asked a lot of
questions and I’m really compelled to
figure out what the answer to those
questions are and any parents in the
audience you know your kids ask a lot of
questions they have that intrinsic
curiosity so I’m not talking to parents
anymore I’m talking to the young folks
in the audience you keep asking those
questions or better still when you leave
today go out there and trying to find
out some of the answers to those
questions thank you very much [Music]
I’d like you Tarrance in the audience to
imagine for a moment you have a sick
child and you have to bring them to the
hospital and after some pretty bad
poking and prodding and tests the
physicians come back to you and tell you
that one of your child’s organs is
failing and then they tell you you may
have to wait years to get a replacement
organ and that this is a
life-threatening situation that your
child may not survive this devastating
situation happens every day to many many
people in fact in the United States
alone 130,000 people are waiting for an
organ transplant but only one out of
four is going to get one this year so
now I want you to think about a future
scenario and this time after all the
tests the doctors come back and they’re
smiling and they say not to worry go
away go back home for a couple of months
and then when you come back we will have
grown a brand new organ that’s specific
now scientists can’t can’t grow whole
organs yet but they have been able to
turn stem cells into small clusters of
cells that make insulin and they’re
testing these in people with diabetes
and they’ve made simple sheets of cells
from stem cells that they’re being
tested and in certain forms of blindness
however to make whole three-dimensional
organs is going to take a vast
collaboration across big areas of
science and medicine now I’m the chief
scientific officer at the center for
stem cell and organoid medicine and
that’s exactly what a very talented and
collaborative group of scientists
physicians bio engineers and Industry
parker’s work on every day our goal is
to make organs for transplantation and
while we can’t do that yet some
breakthrough discoveries over the past
few years I think have us well on our
way in 2009 my lab discovered how to
turn stem cells
which groweth simple flat sheets of
cells into three-dimensional organ like
structures that are called organoids now
organoids have many similar properties
to real organs except they’re much
smaller about the size of a pea but you
can make organoids from any person in
this audience or any patient in the
clinic starting from your own stem cells
this really I think is one of the first
organized centers of its kind how did we
figure out how to do this well we
learned from nature and what we learned
is that we all come from a single cell
that divides and forms smaller parts
that get assembled into larger parts
that make up the organs of the body and
my lab has spent two decades trying to
figure out how organs form using animals
and what we learn from this is that we
all form in a stepwise process starting
from smaller parts and what we do is now
use this information from the laboratory
as a blueprint or a roadmap to
bioengineer tissues in a petri dish and
we start with pluripotent stem cells
which are very special kinds of stem
cells because they can become any cell
or tissue type in your body
and they can be made from any one of you
in the laboratory and what we learn from
stem cells is that organs are assembled
from smaller parts and we replicate this
process in the petri dish first by
bombarding stem cells with bio chemicals
and coaxing them into forming these
smaller parts which we then help guide
into larger and more functional organs
now of course you all know that organs
are highly complex and all the little
parts have to be assembled in exactly
the right way for the organ to form
properly take the intestine for example
the intestine is made up of dozens of
different cell types and it’s assembled
in many different layers
the inner layer absorbs the nutrients in
the food that we eat but that layer
surrounded by layers of muscle layers of
nerves even layers of blood vessels and
they have to come together exactly in
the right way not just to absorb the
food that we eat but to push the food we
eat from one direction all the way down
through the other direction and of
course we all know what happens when
that process goes in Revere’s it never
ends well now the organoids that we can
make in the lab actually have many of
these layers of complexity they have an
inner layer that can absorb nutrients
they’re surrounded by layers of muscle
we’ve even engineered them to have
layers of nerves these things even
contract in a petri dish these really
are highly complex bioengineered tissues
now my lab can now make organoids from
any of the digestive disease any of the
digestive organs in your body we can
make stomach organoids it secrete acid
intestinal organs that absorb nutrients
and our organoid Center is expanding
into other organs like the kidney the
heart even the brain now none of these
organized are ready for transplantation
therapies yet but they are incredibly
useful in it as patient avatars now what
do I mean by that we’re all different we
even get diseases differently even a
common cold might affect me in the chest
and somebody else in the head and how we
respond to drugs is very differently
it’s very different between one person
to the next take cancer for example a
drug might cure cancer in one patient
but cause great harm in another patient
so my lab is growing organoids from
cancer patients and giving them to to
cancer biologists who are now using them
to test whether a drug might actually
work on that type of cancer for that
patient in the Netherlands there using
organoids
from patients to test experimental drugs
for diseases like cystic fibrosis where
they actually test the drug on the
patient organoid first in the lab and
then if it works they use it on the
patient with a much higher degree of
success but I think to me one of the
coolest ways we’re using organoids
is to diagnose patients with really
complicated diseases particularly when
the normal barrage of tests fail to
uncover the cause we had a patient come
into the Medical Center with a highly
complicated disease affecting the
pancreas the stomach and the intestine
and while the physicians did a great job
figuring out what was wrong with the
pancreas none of these really invasive
tests were it
to figure out what was wrong with the
stomach and the intestine so a scientist
in my lab actually made organoids from
that patient and in the laboratory
figured out what was wrong with the
patient and now we’re working with a
team of physicians to come up with a
brand new treatment strategy that is
now of course what we want and what what
we all want are to be able to take these
and use them for transplantation based
therapies in the future and of course
that is in the future but what are we
doing today to make that future a
reality well basically we’re trying to
make our organoids bigger more
functional more like real organs so to
make them bigger we’re trying a bunch of
different things one thing we’re trying
is we’re working with engineers to grow
to to make chambers in which we can grow
our organoids bigger if you remember at
the beginning of my talk I told you our
organoids were only the size of a pea
now we can grow organoids as big as your
thumb we’re also trying to make them
more functional tissues so we’re
engineering in complexity like nerves
muscles blood vessels even immune cells
and lastly we’re working hand in glove
in close collaboration with surgeons to
test whether our Bionic bioengineered
organ tissues can actually cure disease
first in an animal model but of course
with the ultimate goal that nobody
should be told that they may die waiting
so I get asked all the time why on earth
did you become a scientific researcher
and for me it was pretty hardwired you
know it was pretty easy I asked a lot of
questions and I’m really compelled to
figure out what the answer to those
questions are and any parents in the
audience you know your kids ask a lot of
questions they have that intrinsic
curiosity so I’m not talking to parents
anymore I’m talking to the young folks
in the audience you keep asking those
questions or better still when you leave
today go out there and trying to find
out some of the answers to those
questions thank you very much [Music]
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