Organoids. It sounds a bit sci-fi. A homegrown company is pushing the envelope in the scientific world of medical research.
OceanIt has just been awarded a $4 million research grant to develop mini-organs, which are called organoids, grown in the lab to study the body's lymphatic system.
"An organoid is a synthetic organ, which isn't built to be installed in a human but is an incredible device for testing, so that you're not sacrificing animals unduly. And so you can rapidly test lots of things, and you can do this in an automated way," said Oceanit President and CEO Patrick Sullivan.
They hope to unlock better treatments for the diseases that ail us, as well as cancers and genetic disorders.
Sullivan said organoids could one day allow researchers to study how a treatment or therapy would affect a specific body before applying the intervention.
"This creates kind of a new category for managing disease and developing therapies," he said. "A lot of medicine is built around one size fits all, that's everybody take the same thing, regardless of the fact that it may affect you different than it does me."
Sullivan said they're in the early stages of figuring out the limits of the new technology.
He also said that he has been collaborating with the director of the UH Cancer Research Center, Dr. Naoto Ueno. The Conversation plans to talk with Ueno next week.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Oct. 24, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
