Institute for the History of Philosophy and Science in the Modern Age (ISPF), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Naples, Italy.
Stazione Zoologica "Anton Dohrn", Naples, Italy.
Hist Philos Life Sci. 2023 Mar 22;45(2):14. doi: 10.1007/s40656-023-00560-z.
Organoids and organs-on-a-chip are currently the two major families of 3D advanced organotypic in vitro culture systems, aimed at reconstituting miniaturized models of physiological and pathological states of human organs. Both share the tenets of the so-called "three-dimensional thinking", a Systems Physiology approach focused on recapitulating the dynamic interactions between cells and their microenvironment. We first review the arguments underlying the "paradigm shift" toward three-dimensional thinking in the in vitro culture community. Then, through a historically informed account of the technical affordances and the epistemic commitments of these two approaches, we highlight how they embody two distinct experimental cultures. We finally argue that the current systematic effort for their integration requires not only innovative "synergistic" engineering solutions, but also conceptual integration between different perspectives on biological causality.
类器官和器官芯片是目前两种主要的 3D 先进器官体外培养系统，旨在重建人类器官生理和病理状态的微型模型。两者都遵循所谓的“三维思维”原则，即一种系统生理学方法，专注于再现细胞及其微环境之间的动态相互作用。我们首先回顾了体外培养领域向三维思维“范式转变”的基本原理。然后，通过对这两种方法的技术优势和认识承诺进行历史的描述，我们强调了它们如何体现两种不同的实验文化。最后，我们认为，目前为整合它们所做的系统努力不仅需要创新的“协同”工程解决方案，还需要在生物因果关系的不同观点之间进行概念整合。
