(1059-B) Automation of organoid assays for drug screening

Abstract: The last years have shown an enormous increase in the popularity of using organoids for in vitro drug testing due to their improved physiological relevance which is anticipated to reduce the number and size of in vivo studies required to confirm the results.
The setup of a high-throughput screen with organoids is a technical challenge due to the unavailability of sufficient organoids and due to the reagents, that are traditionally used. Therefore, most of the current organoid screens are performed in small scale.
As core facility of the ETH Zurich, NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies has performed several successful organoid screens for different disease models over the last years. We developed an organoid high-throughput screening platform for hepatocellular carcinoma that is compatible with 1536 well plates where we have eliminated the usage of animal-derived basement membrane extracts as well as the usage of pipette tips. During this process we have identified various bottlenecks and hurdles for the implementation of organoid assays with lab automation equipment.