从历史上看，生物学研究主要依赖于动物模型。虽然这导致了对许多人类生物过程的理解，但固有的物种特异性差异使得回答某些与肝脏相关的发育和疾病特定问题变得困难。源自多能干细胞或由健康或患病组织干细胞生成的 3D 类器官模型的出现，使得概括人体器官的生物学方面成为可能。类器官技术有助于理解疾病机制并补充动物模型。这篇综述强调了类器官技术的进步，特别是如何使用肝脏类器官来更好地了解人类特定的发育和疾病生物过程。我们还讨论了类器官模型在药物筛选和个性化医疗应用中取得的进展。

Historically, biological research has relied primarily on animal models. While this led to the understanding of numerous human biological processes, inherent species-specific differences make it difficult to answer certain liver-related developmental and disease-specific questions. The advent of 3D organoid models that are either derived from pluripotent stem cells or generated from healthy or diseased tissue-derived stem cells have made it possible to recapitulate the biological aspects of human organs. Organoid technology has been instrumental in understanding the disease mechanism and complements animal models. This review underscores the advances in organoid technology and specifically how liver organoids are used to better understand human-specific biological processes in development and disease. We also discuss advances made in the application of organoid models in drug screening and personalized medicine.