NYR-Diabetes Research Center (NYR-DRC)

Albert Einstein College Of Medicine, Bronx NY

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Abstract The Human Therapeutic Organoid Core (HTOC) facility was founded in September 2022 at Weill Cornell Medicine to provide a central facility driving human organoid technology development and application. After spending the first year obtaining operating approvals, developing protocols and standard operating procedures, and obtaining and banking cells, it was immediately recognized that the HTOC can have a broader mission to serve regional diabetes and metabolic research through the New York metropolitan area. As such, in the fall of 2023 it was agreed that the HTOC would become an important component of the NYR-DRC, that will allow for an increase in the efficiency and cost effectiveness in service of all regional diabetes research investigators. The mission of HTOC is to accelerate organoid-based scientific discovery and therapeutic development. To accomplish this, the HTOC supports cutting-edge basic, translational, and clinical research investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and the broader community of NYR-DRC investigators. Organoids hold great promise for the basic cellular and molecular understanding of metabolic networks and intercellular cross communication, and for translational efforts that may revolutionize healthcare with multimodal potential for new drug development, precision medicine, regenerative medicine, and transplantation-based therapies for end- stage diseases. The biological complexity of organoids is a strength, but quality-controlled production of organoids, accumulation of relevant expertise in-house, and the cost of manufacturing represents significant challenges for many laboratories to deploy this technology effectively. HTOC aids in overcoming these challenges and helps research groups rapidly and seamlessly incorporate the latest organoid technologies into their ongoing work. The core grows organoids of different cell lineages (pancreatic islets, colon, small intestine and is currently developing hepatocyte organoids) derived from NIH approved human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines and biopsy/autopsy tissues and provides the organoids as a fee-for-service. The central facility overcomes the technical challenges of quality control and reproducibility often found when using organoid technologies. HTOC will provide an opportunity for NYR-DRC laboratories to offset the high costs of establishing and sustaining this technology, in addition to the unnecessary duplication of resources. The proposed HTOC facility will accelerate NYR-DRC’s scientific discoveries using hESC-derived and human tissue-derived organoid models.