Tiny Faux Organs Could Crack the Mystery of Menstruation

August 18, 2023

(MIT Technology Review) – No one is entirely sure how—or why—the human body choreographs this monthly dance of cellular birth, maturation, and death. Many people desperately need treatments to make their period more manageable, but it’s difficult for scientists to design medications without understanding how menstruation really works.

That understanding could be in the works, thanks to endometrial organoids—biomedical tools made from bits of the tissue that lines the uterus, called the endometrium. To make endometrial organoids, scientists collect cells from a human volunteer and let those cells self-organize in laboratory dishes, where they develop into miniature versions of the tissue they came from. (Read More)