This DLD Health talk by Matthias Hebrok, Director of the TUM Center for Organoid Systems, opens a window into the future healthcare. Organoids – simplified versions of human organs grown in a lab – are becoming practical tools to model disease and and enable new therapies within years rather than decades.
Hebrok describes how cells can be assembled into complex systems that mimic human biology and allow researchers to study disease and test treatments in controlled settings. “We have a collection of critical organs that we are trying to rebuild from stem cells”, he says. “The brain, the heart, the liver, the pancreas.”
A central focus of his team’s work is diabetes: stem cell–derived beta cells can restore insulin production, Hebrok explains, as early clinical trials have shown. The challenge now is improving durability and immune compatibility, he says. “I want to generate the future generation of stem cells, and that’s what we’re doing in the lab right now.”
Watch the video to explore this talk in detail.
