For the past few years, there has been a great deal of discussion about the organ donor shortage and the thousands of patients needing transplants who die while waiting.

Some sensationalized reporting has focused on biotech company-promoted experimental surgeries that harvest organs from genetically engineered pigs as the big solution to this shortage. However, xenotransplantation (the transplant of an animal organ into a human) is fraught with serious concerns, particularly over potentially dangerous retroviruses infecting humans and the suffering and death of animals (including nonhuman primates) used in experiments developing this uncertain technology.

An Ohio health professional is taking a practical approach—one that doesn’t harm animals and could prove to be more successful: organoids. “I saw many patients who could not be treated with transplantation because donors are limited,” said Takanori Takebe, trained as a transplant surgeon, and currently Director for Commercial Innovation for the Center for Stem Cell and Organoid Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “I decided to seek another approach.”

Organoids are lab-made mini-organs, created from stem cells that can develop into different cell types. Because organoids can be grown from a patient’s own cells, their use is believed to be less likely to cause organ rejection, indicating great potential as a viable alternative for organ transplantation. Conversely, the use of animal organs for human transplants has long been fraught with issues of compatibility and rejection, and the animals (usually pigs) used are bred in special sterile laboratories and subjected to painful procedures. As personalized medicine continues to gain momentum, the use of human-based tissue holds the greatest long-term promise.