title: The hope and the hype of organoid research.
abstract: The recent increase in organoid research has been met with great enthusiasm, as well as expectation, from the scientific community and the public alike. There is no doubt that this technology opens up a world of possibilities for scientific discovery in developmental biology as well as in translational research, but whether organoids can truly live up to this challenge is, for some, still an open question. In this Spotlight article, Meritxell Huch and Juergen Knoblich begin by discussing the exciting promise of organoid technology and give concrete examples of how this promise is starting to be realised. In the second part, Matthias Lutolf and Alfonso Martinez-Arias offer a careful and considered view of the state of the organoid field and its current limitations, and lay out the approach they feel is necessary to maximise the potential of organoid technology.
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Henry Wellcome Building of Cancer and Developmental Biology, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QN, UK m.huch@gurdon.cam.ac.uk juergen.knoblich@imba.oeaw.ac.at matthias.lutolf@epfl.ch ama11@hermes.cam.ac.uk.|Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Gleeson Building, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge CB2 1QR, UK.|Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3DY, UK.
authors.forename: Meritxell
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1545-5265
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Huch
authors.affiliation: IMBA-Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1030, Austria m.huch@gurdon.cam.ac.uk juergen.knoblich@imba.oeaw.ac.at matthias.lutolf@epfl.ch ama11@hermes.cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Juergen A
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-6751-3404
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Knoblich
authors.affiliation: Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences and School of Engineering, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland m.huch@gurdon.cam.ac.uk juergen.knoblich@imba.oeaw.ac.at matthias.lutolf@epfl.ch ama11@hermes.cam.ac.uk.|Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, School of Basic Sciences, EPFL, Lausanne CH-1015, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Matthias P
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5898-305X
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Lutolf
authors.affiliation: Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Downing Site, Cambridge CB2 3EH, UK m.huch@gurdon.cam.ac.uk juergen.knoblich@imba.oeaw.ac.at matthias.lutolf@epfl.ch ama11@hermes.cam.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1781-564X
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martinez-Arias
mesh_terms: D048788:Growth and Development; D006801:Humans; D009940:Organoids / Q000502:physiology*; D023822:Tissue Engineering; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical
keywords: Disease modelling; Organoids; Stem cells; Therapies