A new collection of reviews and original research articles in SLAS Technology illustrate how new technologies and advanced cell culture are accelerating basic research, drug discovery, and drug development.

When cultured under 3D conditions, human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provide optimized systems that more accurately reflect disease-related target mutations, compound pharmacology, and toxicology.

The review articles in this collection feature a comprehensive, two-part overview of the use of 3D culture, including spheroids and organoids, when growing human iPSCs for use in disease modeling, compound screening, and lead optimization. The research articles address the high-throughput screening of glioblastoma oncospheres in drug, a microfluidic approach to optimization of culture conditions for human iPSCs differentiation, and novel hydrogels for use in microlayered tissue constructs.

Collectively, this special collection, published in the February 2019 issue of SLAS Technology, illustrates how the human iPCS cells and 3D cell culture technology provide powerful approaches to the development of novel and more effective therapies.

Editorial Introduction: Convergence of Three-Dimensional Cell Culture and Human iPS Cells: Improving Clinical Relevance in Drug Discovery by Guest Editor Richard M. Eglen, PhD, Corning Life Sciences, Tewksbury, MA

Review Article: Human iPS Cell-Derived Patient Tissues and 3D Cell Culture Part 1: Target Identification and Lead Optimization

Review Article: Human iPS Cell-Derived Patient Tissues and 3D Cell Culture Part 2: Spheroids, Organoids and Disease Modeling

Original Research: Mutation Profiles in Glioblastoma 3D Oncospheres Modulate Drug Efficacy

Original Research: Full Factorial Microfluidic Designs and Devices for Parallelizing Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Differentiation

Original Research: A Single-Step Self-Assembly Approach for the Fabrication of Aligned and Multilayered Three-Dimensional Tissue Constructs Using Multidomain Peptide Hydrogel