Organ development and diseases are of greatly importance in the whole life of human. Numerous experimental animal models have been established to explore the organ development and the pathogenesis and drug discovery of liver diseases, whereas limitations are also presented in the areas of the structure and functions of organs. Briefly, organoids are three-dimensional (3D) structures from stem cells in vitro. Based on stem cell selection, there are two major types of organoids. The first is initiated from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) which consist of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and synthetic induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and the second is initiated from organ-specific adult stem cells (ASCs). Differ from two-dimensional (2D) cell culture or single cells, 3D cell culture could form functional “micro-organs”, which are able to resemble the tissue structural and functional aspects of human organs and cells closely and therefore provide investigators with new insights of translational researches such as regenerative medicine and discovery and development of medications.Organoid technology have been used to establish models of human carcinomas including gastrointestinal, bladder, ovarian, kidney, and liver. Besides, organoids have been applied to creating tumor organoid biobanks, assessing regenerative potential in transplantation studies, modeling of human diseases in a dish, testing the safety and effectiveness of drugs and personalized medicine approaches.

The aim of this collection is to gather hepatic organoid techniques used to explore the developmental biology, pathogenesis of diseases, regenerative medicine, precision medicine, and toxicity and efficacy tests of drugs.