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© Shen et al
Published in Cell Stem Cell, the study introduces comBO (combined Bone and bone marrow Organoid), a scalable and modular platform that recreates key structural and functional features of the human bone marrow. comBO enables long-term modelling of human blood and immune cell production and provides a new way to study diseases directly in a human tissue context.
Despite decades of investment, many therapies for blood cancers and immune disorders fail in late-stage clinical trials due to poor translation from preclinical models. Animal models and simplified lab-grown cell systems often fail to capture the full complexity of human bone marrow biology, limiting their ability to predict what will happen in patients.
comBo was developed to address this gap. It integrates bone-forming, supportive and blood-forming cells into a single engineered human microenvironment. Within this system, researchers were able to sustain long-term human blood cell production (haematopoiesis) and recreate the specialised niches in the bone marrow that regulate stem cell behaviour and immune cell production.
Read the full story on the The MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (MRC WIMM) website.