In an effort to determine the potential for COVID-19 to begin in a person’s gut, and to better understand how human cells respond to SARS-CoV-2, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory used human intestinal cells to create organoids—3D tissue cultures derived from human cells, which mimic the tissue or organ from which the cells originate. Their conclusions, published in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, indicate the potential for infection to be harbored in a host’s intestines and reveal intricacies in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2.