Organoids: Engineering Innovative Approaches for Basic and Translational Insight - ABSTRACT Support is requested for a Keystone Symposia conference entitled Organoids: Engineering Innovative Approaches for Basic and Translational Insight, organized by Drs. Quinton Smith, Matthias Lütolf and Kelly R. Stevens, with scientific programming input from Keystone Symposia. The meeting will take place May 11–14, 2025 at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. This Keystone Symposia conference explores the biomedical relevance of innovative engineering approaches, such as 3D bioprinting, synthetic gene networks, programmable biomaterials, and microfluidic systems for controlling human organoid organization at multiple scales. These approaches hold tremendous potential for developing novel preclinical drug testing models, disease models, and tissues for regenerative medicine applications, while also advancing our understanding of basic human biology. Meeting sessions will explore the latest emerging methods in organoid bioengineering, their applications and utility for advancing scientific discovery and medical practice. This conference fills a unique need in the scientific community not fulfilled by other meetings, as it focuses on the intersection of organoid biology and engineering with clinical insights. The program will address critical gaps in knowledge by bringing together scientists across disciplines in both academia and industry to challenge current research paradigms and employ transformative approaches and methods. The goal is to consolidate the field, move it forward, and bridge it with other areas of disease relevance to enable the greatest impact to science and medicine. Accordingly, this conference will be held jointly with the Keystone Symposia meeting, Single Cell Biology: Unique Cells to Tissue Ecosystems. Through shared keynote and joint scientific sessions, poster sessions, and informal social activities, attendees will have an opportunity to network and share cross-disciplinary insights, which will encourage new collaborations towards understanding the complex cellular ecosystem that makes up tissues and model organoids. In addition, this conference will feature among the Keystone Symposia’s 2025 Health Equity Series that seeks to raise awareness for health disparities in various disease states and initiate discussions on how to rectify health inequities through scientific research and discovery. As part of this initiative, Keystone Symposia embeds health equity content across the meeting portfolio by the addition of keynote speakers, workshops and panels that showcase how scientists are bringing molecular, cellular, and genetic approaches to bear on health equity research and outcomes. By catalyzing these conversations, and bringing in diverse voices, the aim is to openly address these issues and foster collaborative and innovative approaches to make health and medicine equally accessible to all.
