Washington DC, April 19 -- One of the reasons our livers excel at clearing waste from our blood system is because the organ functions according to three key "zones" that perform specific major tasks.

So, if scientists hope to create self-growing patches of liver organoid tissue that could help repair damaged organs, it's important that the lab-grown tissue faithfully reproduces such zones.

In a groundbreaking paper published April 16, 2025, in the journal Nature, a team of organoid medicine experts at Cincinnati Children's reports achieving just such a milestone -- made from human stem cells.

When these humanised organoids were transplanted into rodents whose own liver-bile duct system had been disconnected, the improved organoids near...