Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jul 23;13(1):337.
doi: 10.1186/s13287-022-02950-9.

Organoids: a systematic review of ethical issues

Dide de Jongh  1   2 , Emma K Massey  3 ; VANGUARD consortium; Eline M Bunnik  4
Collaborators, Affiliations

Organoids: a systematic review of ethical issues

Dide de Jongh et al. Stem Cell Res Ther. .

Abstract

Organoids are 3D structures grown from pluripotent stem cells derived from human tissue and serve as in vitro miniature models of human organs. Organoids are expected to revolutionize biomedical research and clinical care. However, organoids are not seen as morally neutral. For instance, tissue donors may perceive enduring personal connections with their organoids, setting higher bars for informed consent and patient participation. Also, several organoid sub-types, e.g., brain organoids and human-animal chimeric organoids, have raised controversy. This systematic review provides an overview of ethical discussions as conducted in the scientific literature on organoids. The review covers both research and clinical applications of organoid technology and discusses the topics informed consent, commercialization, personalized medicine, transplantation, brain organoids, chimeras, and gastruloids. It shows that further ethical research is needed especially on organoid transplantation, to help ensure the responsible development and clinical implementation of this technology in this field.

Keywords: Brain organoids; Chimeras; Ethics; Gastruloids; Informed consent; Organoids; Personalized medicine; Research oversight; Stem cell research; Transplantation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A PRISMA flow diagram of the included literature
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Sasai Y, Eiraku M, Suga H. In vitro organogenesis in three dimensions: self-organising stem cells. Dev. 2012;139:4111–4121. doi: 10.1242/dev.079590. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Lancaster MA, Knoblich JA. Organogenesisin a dish: modeling development and disease using organoid technologies. Science. 2014;345:1247125. doi: 10.1126/science.1247125. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Clevers H. Modeling development and disease with organoids. Cell. 2016;165:1586–1597. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.05.082. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kim J, Koo B-K, Knoblich JA. Human organoids: model systems for human biology and medicine. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2020;21:571–584. doi: 10.1038/s41580-020-0259-3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fujii M, Sato T. Somatic cell-derived organoids as prototypes of human epithelial tissues and diseases. Nat Mater. 2020;20:156–169. doi: 10.1038/s41563-020-0754-0. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources