The year of the organoid

摘要

The brain-in-a-jar is one of science fiction's creepier ideas. It is a safe prediction that 2016 will not see such literally disembodied people become reality. What it will see, though, is the blossoming of a technology that lets scientists grow things resembling brains-and also livers, kidneys, intestines and many other body parts-in glass vessels in laboratories. Over the course of 2016 these simulacra, known as organoids, will begin to enter routine medical use as ways of testing drugs. They will also, by illuminating the way real organs grow, cast light on diseases caused during embryonic development. Eventually, though probably not in 2016, some will even be made good enough to be transplanted into people, to replace diseased or failing natural organs.