ABSTRACT
Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Organoids as Tools for Fundamental
Discovery and Translation organized by Drs. Jason Spence, Melissa Little and Barbara Treutlein. The
conference will be held in Keystone, Colorado from April 3-6, 2022.
Organoids are complex three-dimensional in vitro organ-like model systems. Organoids can be derived from
pluripotent stem cells or primary donor tissue and have been used to address fundamental questions about
development, stem cell biology and organ regeneration. Human organoids have highlighted significant
unknowns in human biology and have invigorated new exploration into the cellular makeup of human organs
during development, in the adult and during disease. Efforts to improve complexity in organoid systems, and
to make organoid systems more robust, reproducible and controlled have prompted efforts to benchmark in
vitro organoid systems against their in vivo counterparts, and efforts to control organoid systems through
bioengineering approaches. The goals of this symposium are to highlight recent and emerging advances that
implement organoids as tools to move several areas of biology forward, including improving complexity and
maturation, high content drug screening, disease modeling, and understanding development and evolution. We
anticipate that attendees will take away from this meeting new scientific knowledge, new methods and new
technical capabilities. Moreover, given that the implementation of organoids in basic discovery and
translational research spans a wide range of disciplines, it is likely that this meeting will bring together a
diverse audience fostering novel cross-disciplinary interactions.