The Core Facility for Organoids provides services in the establishment and cultivation of organoids, as well as the testing of clinically relevant substances on these cultures. Organoids are three-dimensional epithelial structures that mimic the structure and function of the organ or tissue from which they are derived.
So far, the cultivation conditions for organoids based on tumor material of pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer have been established in the Core Facility. Organoid cultures for further tumor types such as breast cancer and urothelial carcinoma are currently being established.

Please do not hesitate to contact us regarding your questions and projects!

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Starting from small tumor pieces, patient-specific organoid cultures can be established, which can be passaged in vitro due to their self-renewal and self-organization ability (Fig.1).

For this purpose, a special matrix (e.g. Matrigel) and media with appropriate niche factors are used (Fig.2).  These "patient avatars" reflect the structural and molecular characteristics of the original tumor tissue and can be used, among other things, to investigate the response to substances used in cancer therapy, such as chemotherapeutic agents or small-molecule inhibitors.

A correlation between clinical response in patients and results from organoid assays has already been described for various tumor types [s. Publications].

Services:

• Establishment and cultivation of organoids
• Biobanking
• Drug screening
• Methods training
• Scientific services
  (project planning, implementation, debriefing, troubleshooting)

• 6-axis robot arm - high flexibility (with 360° movement), allows printing from all directions, even on curved surfaces
• Up to 8-tools in one run - additionally it is possible to choose between cooled and heated tools
• Compatible with a wide variety of materials - e.g. collagen, gelatin, pluronic, nanocellulose
• Scanning of objects and targeted printing on the corresponding surface (upload of patient data is also possible)
• Printing (with a resolution of 100 µm), pipetting and independent transport of plates within the device
• TSIM software for the design of 3D structures

 

• High precision which allows dispensing of small volumes (down to 100 nL)
• Micro-diaphragm technology with 3 different chips:
  • Low Volume Chip: 0.1 µl and 1 µl
  • High Volume Chip: 1 µl and 5 µl
  • Continuous Flow Chip: 5 µl - 50 mL (depending on nozzel size)
• High speed which allows pipetting of e.g. Matrigel
• Supports different well formats (1536-well plate to 6-well plate), minimizing reaction volume and saving reagents (e.g. drug testing in 384-well format)
• Compatible with many substances (PCR reagents, medium, drugs, DMSO (max. 5 %), ...)
• Low consumption of pipette tips