The 5th Cross-SwafS Stakeholder Forum began with a welcome and summary of the previous meeting. Following the introduction, each project provided updates on its recent activities and outputs. Also, we had the pleasure of attending the HYBRIDA  project’s presentation and discussing the ethical and research integrity-related challenges of organoid research. Looking forward to the next meeting!

The presentation by HYBRIDA focused on the ethical and research integrity-related challenges of organoid research. The presentation began with a description of organoid research. Organoid research is new and innovative research field, and it is uncertain whether there will be technological/clinical applications. Potential applications of the research were discussed.

It was stated that operational guidelines and legal frameworks have to be created/established for organoid research, taking into account various ethical, moral, and philosophical issues. The question of “Do organoids raise any new issues?” — as stem cell research did — was posed.

The methodology for organoid research was outlined as encompassing three questions: (conceptual) What is an organoid?; (epistemological) What are the uncertainties and blind spots?; (regulatory) What regulations cover persons as opposed to “things”? This continued on into a section on the nature of organoids. Should organoid tissue be viewed as a natural or an artificial entity? The nature of organoid tissue raises issues regarding biobank governance, informed consent for tissue donors, and intellectual property.

A discussion followed on science communication, science mistrust, digital literacy, AI, governance, societal bias and the gaps between reality and categories found in a dataset and algorithms.