The Tata lab in the Department of Cell Biology has developed a “lung organoid” model, also dubbed ‘mini-lungs in a dish’. The organoids are grown from alveolar epithelial type-2 cells (AT2s), which are the stem cells that repair the deepest portions of the lungs where SARS-CoV-2 attacks. This is a versatile model system that allows us to study not only SARS-CoV-2, but any respiratory virus that targets these cells, including influenza. The Tata lab found the cells produced interferons and experienced self-destructive cell death, just as samples from Covid patients have shown. The signal for cell suicide was sometimes triggered in uninfected neighboring lung cells as well, as the cells struggled to get ahead of the virus. The researchers also compared the gene activity patterns between the mini-lungs and samples from six severe Covid-19 patients and found striking similarities. A paper describing the development of the mini-lungs and some early experiments with coronavirus infection published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.