Charting a path to better cell models of the intestine
(PHYSorg.com Biology)

For many years, drug development has relied on simplified and scalable cell culture models to find and test new drugs for a wide variety of diseases. However, cells grown in a dish are often a feint representation of healthy and diseased cell types in vivo. This limitation has serious consequences: Many potential medicines that originally appear promising in cell cultures often fail to work when tested in patients, and targets may be completely missed if they do not appear in a dish.