News

To better understand how different bacteria interact with the lining of the human nose, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine recently used a miniature model of the human nose to study how bacteria can live in nasal passages. We worked with human nasal organoids (HNOs), a laboratory-grown cell layer like the one that coats the inside of our noses, which is the point of first contact between nasal bacteria and us," said corresponding author Dr. Katherine P. Lemon, associate professor of pediatric infectious diseases and of molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor. "In people, the cells lining the inside of the nose, the epithelium, are exposed to air on one side and to the blood circulatory system on their opposite side. The core then grows some of these on tissue-culture plates that provide an air-liquid interface, where the top side of the epithelium is exposed to air and the bottom side is bathed in liquid that provides nutrients to the cells."