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The mini lungs and other organoids helping to beat COVID

Virologists have infected millions of miniature organs with SARS-CoV-2, to learn how the virus wreaks havoc and how to stop it.
  1. Smriti Mallapaty
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Micrograph of a human intestinal organoid infected with SARS-CoV-2

Human gut organoids infected with SARS-CoV-2 (white), the virus that causes COVID-19. Credit: Joep Beumer/Hubrecht Institute

Shuibing Chen spent close to two months tending to her mini lungs — some half a million of them. Each one looked like a tiny storm cloud, ensconced in a warm dish and protected by a jelly-like dome. Chen, a stem-cell biologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and her team had nurtured them from clumps of human cells, adding nutrients every few days as they grew into 3D air sacs.

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Nature 593, 492-494 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01395-z

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