UMN hosts “Toward a Minnesota Organoid Center” Symposium and Workshop

April 24, 2024 — Brenda Ogle, PhD, Professor and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Stem Cell Institute, co-chaired an organoid symposium and workshop that attracted more than 200 researchers and clinicians from the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic. Called “Toward a Minnesota Organoid Center”, The April 8 event was hosted by the Stem Cell Institute (SCI) and the Institute for Engineering in Medicine at the University of Minnesota together with the Mayo Clinic.

Prof. Ogle co-chaired the event alongside Chuck Howe, PhD, Professor of Neurology and Chair of the Division of Experimental Neurology at Mayo Clinic. The event was part of the UMN Innovation Week.

The symposium featured talks by researchers and clinicians from UMN and Mayo Clinic discussing advances in organoid manufacturing capabilities, development, and distribution. There were also presentations on the current state-of-the-art for various organoids, including blood-brain-barrier, pancreatic islet organoids, and intestinal organoids.

In addition, workshops gave attendees the opportunity to talk about the development, standardization, and quality control of organoids for research, and how both organizations could align funding opportunities to accelerate development. The event ended with poster presentations and a talk by keynote speaker Valeria Canto-Soler, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, Doni Solich Family Chair in Ocular Stem Cell Research, and Director of CellSight - Ocular Stem Cell and Regeneration Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.