This online webinar was organised by the BSI Comparative and Veterinary Immunology Affinity Group (BSI-CVIG), with support from The Pirbright Institute.
On the 16 of April 2024, BSI-CVIG and The Pirbright Institute organised a hybrid meeting on ‘Pioneering organoids and 3D cell cultures for animal and human health’. It was attended by 85 delegates online and another 45 participants in-person at The Pirbright Institute.
The day began with a morning session that welcomed four invited speakers. Adithya Sridhar (Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands) kicked off the session by introducing airway cultures, intestinal epithelium cultures and brain organoids from human tissues. Adithya showed their versatility to study viral infections, including the testing of antiviral drugs. This was followed by an insightful talk from Kate Sutton (The Roslin Institute, UK), demonstrating the unique properties of floating, inside-out chicken enteroids, and how they can be used to monitor virulence and the early immune response of different chicken lines to avian influenza viruses. The session’s momentum continued with an impressive talk from David Smith (Moredun Research Institute, UK) showcasing the enormous number of different organoid models across large animal species that he and his colleagues have developed. David highlighted their utility to study innate immune responses against worm infections. As the morning session drew to a close, we heard from Dirk Werling (Royal Veterinary College London, UK). He highlighted the benefits of precision cut tissue slices from different organs for the study of host-pathogen interactions and introduced the potential of organ-on-a-chip systems to study multi-organ systems.
After lunch, we settled in for a sponsored talk from Roxana Micsik (STEMCELL), showing the merit of organoids for drug screening and highlighting the portfolio of STEMCELL products for organoid and 3D cell culture research. This was followed by six more interesting talks from attendees who had submitted abstracts, covering a broad range of culture models from different species and their use to test infectious agents, vaccines, and compounds. This included the influence of breast milk treatment on intestinal epithelial cultures, lung epithelial cultures for testing SARS-CoV-2 and bovine RSV in human and bovine samples, respectively, as well as the testing of feed additives on chicken enteroids.
After a fantastic run of talks, we finished the session off with a panel discussion from four invited speakers. The panel considered the related ethical implications, possibilities for the replacement of Matrigel with synthetic products were discussed. The possibility of standardisation and validation of different organoid or 3D tissue models was a major question addressed during this discussion; it was noted that validation is a key aspect but often not sufficiently pursued. Another aspect discussed was donor variation, and one conclusion was that this variation has advantages: whatever outcome is achieved, in the context of compound or drug testing, it needs to be significant across cultures derived from different donors. Related to this, the establishment of cultures or organoids from donors with different genetic backgrounds would allow investigations into the influence of genetic variation. Possibilities for genetic manipulation were also discussed in this context.
BSI-CVIG committee: Wilhelm Gerner, Kate Sutton, Amanda Gibson, Rebecca McLean, Ambre Chapuis, Lindert Benedictus
Did you know...
The scope of Discovery Immunology has recently been expanded to include veterinary immunology.
By increasing the journal's scope to include veterinary science, veterinary immunologists can now submit research for publication in Discovery Immunology, allowing us to support a wider range of research opportunities and foster collaboration across disciplines. The learnings from veterinary immunology research could have significant implications for wider immunology research, furthering scientific knowledge.