Co-Culture Club: Using Organoids to Study How Cancer Grows

Co-Culture Club: Using Organoids to Study How Cancer Grows

Collections: Image Award Winners, Cancer Discovery Science

2020 Award Winner

Jonathan Braverman, George Eng, Daiyao Zhang, Ömer Yilmaz

Koch Institute at MIT, MIT Department of Biology

The Yilmaz Lab uses miniature organs, known as organoids, to study the events leading to tumor initiation. Cells are taken from the large intestine and genetically modified to manifest common cancer-associated mutations.

Seeding the engineered organoids (large white spheres) side by side with non-mutated colon organoids (blue/green) allows researchers to track and compare their growth in three dimensions. Changing the growth conditions or introducing therapeutics into the co-cultured system will help the team identify the earliest possible interventions to limit cancer progression. 

spherically organized cells against a black background

Video

George Eng shares the story behind the image. Additional information, including Q&A, is available here.