Author Spotlight: Advancing Human Ovarian Repair and Cancer Studies with Surface Epithelium Organoids

Our research focuses on understanding the ovarian function in humans. Due to the still present knowledge gap in female reproductive health, as well as the increasing need for new technology to treating fertility, we aim to study ovarian processes, such as folliculogenesis, or tissue regeneration in order to promote the development of new clinical protocols. In recent years, we have witnessed great advances in 3D tissue culture protocols.

These developments have enabled the formation of, for instance, artificial ovaries, which are follicle like structures, capable of supporting the maturation of an all site full image. Additionally, we are also seeing how organoids or tumoroids, which are miniaturized version of an organ or a tissue, we are seeing how they are paving the way for further studies on ovarian biology and diseases. Access to ovarian samples coming from donors in reproductive age still represents a big challenge.

On top of that, results obtain when using this material show a high inter donor viability, most likely due to factors such as differences in donor's age, metabolic state, and endocrine function. Altogether, this heterogeneity makes it difficult to reproduce results and to translate the protocols into the clinic. Despite that the ovaries stand out as one of the most dynamic and changing organs within the body it's regenerative mechanisms are still very poorly understood.

And actually, most of the knowledge obtained so far still comes from animal models. With our OSC organoid protocol, we provide a platform to study the role of the human OSC layer in ovarian tissue regeneration and wound healing. Compared to others our protocol has been designed based on the use of non-pathological samples.

This allow its application in developmental studies that are trying to find answers to fundamental mechanistic questions about the ovarian function in humans.