Back to the Labex Who Am I? “Visite Insolite”

“Visite Insolite” on Saturday, October 2.

The first group of participants together with the organizers of the “Organoids: mini-organs that grow in the lab” visit.

One visit, two groups and three workshops

The visit started with a short introduction given by Claire Rougeulle (coordinator of Labex Who Am I?, and deputy director of the Epigenetics and Cell Fate unit) on the concepts of stem cells, organoids and the CRISPR technology, recently awarded of a Nobel Prize.

Then, the visitors left to discover the laboratories and equipment used by the researchers to study organoids.

A first workshop was dedicated to the visit of a level 2 laboratory, and the discovery of stem cells. Léo Carrillo (Ph.D. student in the Epigenetics and Cell Fate unit) invited the participants to put on the required attire, a gown, and gloves, before entering the laboratory. Léo presented the different pieces of equipment: incubators, laminar flow cabinets, microscopes, etc., and materials necessary for the culture of stem cells before performing a demonstration of changing the nutritional medium for these cells. Then, he accompanied the participants in observing these stem cells under a microscope and in a practical workshop: changing the cell culture medium themselves!

     

For the second workshop, Kamal Bouhali (Research Engineer, enSCORE platform) and Mikaëlle Bocel (Research Engineer, enSCORE platform) guided our visitors to observe organoids at different stages of evolution. Using salt dough models and couscous or bulgur seeds, the participants followed the development of pseudo-neural organoids over time. Then, the team challenged them, objective: transfer the organoids, change the medium, and encapsulate them in a Matrigel matrix. Not easy!