Outdoorküche

The small intestine is much more than a digestive organ. It’s a major home to our microbiome, it’s a key site where mucosal immunity develops and it provides a protective barrier against a variety of infections. Animal models don’t do justice to the human intestine in all its complexity.

Attempts to better model human intestinal function began with intestinal “organoids,” created from intestinal stem cells. The cells, from human biopsy samples, form hollowed balls or “mini-intestines” bearing all the cell types of the intestinal lining, or epithelium.