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Disease in three dimensions: Tissue engineering takes on infectious disease

Nature Medicine volume 23, pages 2–4 (2017)Cite this article

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Three-dimensional models of organs have been used before by researchers studying cancer and developing tissue replacements for patients, but recent advances in tissue engineering have created models useful for understanding infectious disease. Getting to this point has taken careful modulation of the growth factors that enable organoids to grow, says Mary Estes, an infectious-disease researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. Increasingly, these three-dimensional alternative models are being widely adopted for research into infectious disease as a substitute for petri-dish experiments or animal models that tend to fail.

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  1. Shraddha Chakradhar is Nature Medicine's associate news editor, based in Boston.,

    Shraddha Chakradhar

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  1. Shraddha Chakradhar
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Chakradhar, S. Disease in three dimensions: Tissue engineering takes on infectious disease. Nat Med 23, 2–4 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0117-2

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