Bats might look harmless hanging from trees or in caves, but they quietly harbor some of the world’s most dangerous viruses. From COVID-19 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to influenza and hantavirus, bats are linked to several major outbreaks. And yet, scientists have long struggled to understand how these deadly viruses behave inside bats—mainly because the right tools just didn’t exist. Now, that may be changing.
A team of scientists from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea, working with global collaborators, has created the most advanced bat organoid platform in the world. This platform consists of lab-grown “mini-organs” built from five common bat species found across Asia and Europe. Instead of focusing on just one organ or one bat, this new platform includes organoids from the airway, lungs, kidneys, and intestines; four major sites where viruses often invade.
“Reconstructing bat organ physiology in the lab lets us explore how zoonotic viruses—those that jump from animals to humans—work, in unprecedented detail,” said Koo Bon-Kyoung, Director of the IBS Center for Genome Engineering.
Armed with this innovative tool, researchers tested how some of the most notorious viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV, influenza A, and hantavirus, infect different bat species and organs. What they found was surprising: the same virus behaved very differently depending on the bat and the organ it attacked. A virus might grow rapidly in one bat’s lung cells but completely fail to infect another’s kidney tissue. This could explain why only some viruses manage to jump from bats to humans.
But perhaps the most intriguing discovery was how each species of bats’ immune responses change from one organ to another. The same virus might trigger a strong defense in the lungs but barely a reaction in the intestine. This unique adaptability could help explain why bats can carry so many viruses without getting sick themselves.
“This platform lets us isolate viruses, study infections, and test drugs all within one system—something you can’t do with ordinary lab cell models,” said Senior Researcher Kim Hyunjoon.
And the surprises kept coming. The team discovered two completely new bat viruses, one a mammalian orthoreovirus and the other a paramyxovirus, directly from wild bat feces. One of these viruses couldn’t be grown in regular lab cell cultures but thrived in the new bat organoids. That alone proves just how crucial this tool could be for virus discovery in the future.
Even more impressively, the scientists developed a simplified, two-dimensional version of these organoids to test antiviral drugs. When they tested a treatment like Remdesivir, they found results that were more accurate and reliable than those from traditional lab methods.
“With these standardized and scalable bat organoids, we aim to systematically identify novel bat-origin viruses and screen antiviral candidates targeting pathogens with pandemic potential,” said Dr. Choi Young Ki, Director of the Korea Virus Research Institute at IBS.
Looking ahead, the team hopes to transform this platform into a global biobank—a shared resource that scientists across the world can use to prepare for future pandemics. This biobank would allow researchers to map how viruses evolve, how they jump species, and how best to stop them in their tracks.
In short, this isn’t just a scientific breakthrough—it’s a major leap forward for global health security. For the first time, researchers can safely study dangerous bat viruses in a realistic lab setting, opening the door to faster detection, smarter drug development, and stronger pandemic prevention.
And as the world braces for whatever virus may come next, this bat-based organoid system could be the tool that helps humanity stay one step ahead.
For more details, refer to this article published in Science.
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