Mini-organs with higher-order function have tremendous potential for disease modeling, drug discovery, and regenerative medicine. The strategies and approaches researchers use to build these higher-order structures, particularly those involving organoids, harness developmental principles and self-guided assembly. This frontier of biological discovery benefits from a particularly fruitful cross-pollination of disciplines such as bioengineering, stem cell and developmental biology. The ability to build these higher-order structures is propelling forward efforts to develop more physiologically relevant models, including pathological models of disease and cancer, and further advancing therapeutic development. Despite promising progress, there are inherent limitations, which burgeoning bioengineering advances, such as genome engineering, microfluidics, and biomaterials, among many others, are now just beginning to address.

The goal of this Cell Symposium is to bring scientists studying organoids and organ engineering together with bioengineers to discuss the exciting opportunities and challenges for engineering complexity in higher-order organ-like systems and to foster collaborations and synergize efforts toward generating cellular platforms that can address a myriad of unmet needs.

Sessions:

• How simple is complex enough? (Panel discussion)
• Toward translating organ(oid) engineering (Panel discussion)

• Breakout sessions (Delving into the peer review process, Alternative careers in publishing, What does it take to effectively transition from PhD to postdoc and postdoc to principal investigator?, Picking a lab, Entrepreneurship, Scientific Communication, Being a Changemaker, Modeling COVID-19: Organoid and organ-on-a-chip models to study SARS-CoV-2 infection, Organ and organoids-on-a-chip technology, and Assembloids)

About Cell Symposia Express:

Cell Symposia Express is a short-format, online-only event that gives you the opportunity to interact with esteemed scientists in your field without having to travel or spend time away from the lab. We facilitate connections, spark new insights, and pave the way for cross-disciplinary collaborations with an engaging, highly interactive forum. Registration is free.