News
Animal Organoids: current research and future
On November 28th, 2022, the seminar ‘Animal Organoids: current research and future’ was held at Wageningen University and Research (WUR)’s Omnia building. Almost 100 people attended the seminar in person and online.
The seminar brought together experts in the field of organoid research to discuss the current state-of-the-art and future directions of this exciting technology. The seminar was organized by Dr. Esther Ellen and Dr. David Flossdorf on the occasion of the completion of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) project ‘Organoids as a research tool in animal breeding and nutrition’.
Presentations on the potential applications of animal organoids
Several researchers involved in the PPP presented their work. Dr. Soumya Kar from Wageningen Livestock Research (WLR) gave an overview of the different types of animal organoids that have been developed and their potential applications. Roxann Rikkers (WLR), showed that intestinal organoids of pigs resemble their original tissue quite well based on transcriptomic analysis. The R&D directors of the two companies involved in the PPP project Dr. Geert Bruggeman (Royal Agrifirm Group) and Dr. Egbert Knol (Topigs Norsvin) showed the potential of using organoids in animal breeding and nutrition companies. The day was rounded up by talks from Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nicholas Zachos, (Vanderbilt University) and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rik de Swart (Erasmus University & Wageningen Bioveterinary Research), who presented their work on organoids in infection research.
Overall, the seminar provided valuable insights into the latest research and development of animal organoids, highlighting their potential applications in animal breeding and nutrition. It is clear that animal organoids have the potential to revolutionize the way we study and treat diseases, as well as to develop new therapies and drugs.
New organoid PPP project in 2023
Since the beginning of 2023, a new PPP project ‘Implementation of organoids in animal breeding and nutrition research’ has started. The main aims of the new PPP are (1) to validate the already developed organoid based Transwell system for nutrition absorption and test different functional ingredients using organoids derived from phenotypically diverse pigs; (2) to develop co-culturing of pig intestinal organoids and immune cells, and (3) gene editing in organoids to gain an understanding of the biological signaling pathways to improve the application of the in vitro organoid system in animal breeding and nutrition research. With more research and development, we can look forward to an exciting future for animal organoids.