Abstract
In this first lecture, a brief history of organoids is presented and it is shown that these biological objects emerged following spectacular technological developments in three distinct fields : the field of stem cells, that of cell culture engineering and that of mammalian developmental genetics. These joint developments respond to the growing need to think of biological systems in vitro in three dimensions, in an attempt to recapitulate not only the structure and cell types of the organs concerned, but also some of their physiological functions. The following points will be covered in some detail :
- thinking in three dimensions ;
- a bridge betweenin vitro andin vivo ;
- the start of 3D cultures, explants ;
- definitions of terms ;
- a brief history of organoids ;
- main characteristics ;
- development and self-organization.
