Arboviral diseases are a major health issue worldwide with an impact on the long-term well-being of the patients while causing an economical burden to the affected countries. Although not an arboviral disease, the recent Covid pandemic has particularly exemplified how rapid spreading viral infections can have poor socio-economic consequences. In that sense, it is alarming to observe that owing to the convergence of multiple factors, including global warming, the mosquitoes carrying the arboviruses are now globally spreading in the Northern countries, including Europe. To face this challenge, new research models are needed to understand the mechanisms that underly the viral infections, particularly in the skin. In that sense, the results we obtained over the time of this project are ground breaking. We demonstrated for the first time that skin organoids, which offer a lot of experimental flexibility, can be combined with infected mosquitoes and used as physiological model to study arboviral infections in humans. Although the socio-economic impact of this discovery is not yet measurable with regard to arboviral infections, we anticipate that our work will be the foundation for finding new preventive and therapeutic approaches to counter these infection in the coming years. In addition, beyond the implications of this project in the virology field, the generation and implementation of tissue-engineered human skins also offers new opportunities in the field of dermatology research. Indeed, the past years have demonstrated that while rodents (the most common models used in research) are useful in fundamental research, they often fall short when it comes to translational research. Therefore alternative models are required to mimic human biology and organoids represent one interesting alternative. However, more efforts are necessary to develop these tools. In that sense, this project has already contributed to the improvement of the tissue-engineering in dermatology, demonstrating that a complex tissue harbouring macrophages and sensory neurons together can be achieved. It makes no doubt that these advancements will have a strong impact on the dermatological research community. Finally, the growing interest in mimicking human tissue also answer to the increasing societal and political pressure to reduce animals in Research, particularly in the European Union. This is particularly exemplified by the banishment of animal use for cosmetic tests. This research project directly reply to this growing demand by completely avoiding the use of any animal models. Interest of cosmetic private compagnies regarding our human skin model has already been proven multiple times and we expect to develop partnerships with some of these compagnies in a near future.
