🫁 Breathing Life Into Research: Lung Explants, Organoids & Nasal ALIs 🫁

Keywords

Lung research, Respiratory tract, Human lung explants, Organoids, Air-liquid interface cultures, Infections, Drug testing, Disease mechanisms, Virology

Summary

In this episode of the Young Immunologist Podcast ImmunoChat, host Pia Leipe interviews Dr. Saskia Hinse, a postdoc at the University clinic Münster at the Institute of molecular Virology, to discuss models of the respiratory tract. They explore the use of human lung explants, organoids, and air-liquid interface cultures in lung research, focusing on their applications in studying infections, drug testing, and understanding disease mechanisms. The conversation highlights the advantages and challenges of these models, emphasizing their role in complementing traditional in vitro and in vivo experiments.

Takeaways

• Lung explants are small pieces of human lung tissue used for research.
• Organoids are grown from type II pneumocytes and can be maintained for months.
• Air-liquid interface cultures mimic the upper respiratory tract.
• These models help study infections and drug testing.
• Lung explants and organoids complement in vitro and in vivo experiments.
• Challenges include tissue availability and heterogeneity.
• Human tissue models are key for understanding disease mechanisms.

Please find here links to publications using the models discussed today - Lung explants, Organoids and ALIs: 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39248230/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36423831/

Contact details 

• Dr. Saskia Sophie Hinse 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saskia-sophie-hinse-0a273a398/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and models in lung research
• 2:04 Lung explants from Patients
• 6:43 Comparison of Lung explants with in vivo und in vivo models
• 9:09 Challenges of using Lung explants
• 10:59 Lung Organoids
• 16:11 Air-Liquid-Interface cultures - Nasal ALIs
• 20:52 Future directions in Lung research
• 25:40 Concluding remarks and further opportunities