Beschreibung:
<jats:p>Have you ever pictured yourself as a LEGO<jats:sup>®</jats:sup>-mini-figure? That is pretty cool, right?! But now, instead of picturing yourself as an astronaut, superhero, or elf-figure, try to imagine your own body being miniature and built from LEGO<jats:sup>®</jats:sup>–one brick for each of your organs. Sound weird? Let us explain why a mini LEGO<jats:sup>®</jats:sup>-version of you could be extremely useful and could become reality in the future. Such technology might help end testing that uses laboratory animals and help your doctors understand your disease. We use people’s cells and small plastic housings to build mini-organs the size of small LEGO<jats:sup>®</jats:sup>-bricks, such as a beating heart or energy-storing fat tissue. Similar to playing LEGO<jats:sup>®</jats:sup>, we can also connect different organ-bricks and study how they talk and work with each other. In this article, we will tell you how this all works and why it is so much better than animal experiments.</jats:p>