In the future, patients could even have personalized organoids grown from their own tissue to try out potential treatments in advance.

“The best result for now—quite simply—is that it works,” said Professor Diana Klein of University of Duisburg-Essen, first author of the article in Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology.

“This means that, in principle, lung organoids can be produced using an automated process. These complex structures represent the in vivo situation better than conventional cell lines and thus serve as an excellent disease model.”