TABLE 1.

Advantages and disadvantages of organoid systems.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Access to previously inaccessible tissue that would have only been available post-mortem	Wide variability has been noted in brain organoids cultured under identical conditions
Contain same genetic background as patients in case of iPSC-derived organoids	No standardized protocol for establishing organoid models – Which protocol is the right protocol?
In instances where iPSCs are unavailable, researchers can use genome editing to introduce disease-associated mutations in stem cells to derive organoids	Difficulty in modeling interacting systems requiring organoids to be cultured under different conditions. Trans-well culture systems developed, but prevent direct physical interaction, which may be required
Preponderance of protocols to derive various organoids that can be scaled up or down depending on laboratory capabilities	No established methodology to introduce functional vascularization into brain organoids, short of engrafting the organoids into rodent hosts
Provides a more “in vivo” like human cellular model for drug screening	Cultures are more representative of fetal developmental stages rather than postnatal stages
3D microenvironment that more faithfully recapitulates cell-cell interactions than 2D models	Clonal variability, even among iPSCs from the same patient, requires the use of multiple clones to generate organoids