Tumor Organoid and HTS Models for Precision Medicine and Novel Leads

Tumor Organoids as 3D Models for Precision Oncology: In this presentation by Helen Kuo, PhD Candidate from Weill Cornell Medicine, she will discuss patient-derived tumor organoids (PDTOs), which are emerging ex vivo cancer models for precision medicine studies. PDTOs are particularly useful because they harbor the mutational landscape of primary tumors. The goal of the organoid platform at Englander Institute for Precision Medicine is to utilize PDTOs and cutting-edge technologies to identify individualized therapeutic options for precision oncology. Extracellular matrix (ECM) selection is an essential step in organoid development and for different functional assays involving them. Here Helen will describe their experimental pipelines using Corning® Matrigel matrix as ECM, as well as how the new Corning® Matribot® bioprinter could enhance it.

3D Models of Solid Tumors from Diverse Cancers: HTS Towards Precision Medicine and Novel Leads:
Despite recent advances in cancer research, it is still a major challenge to properly treat patients due to heterogeneity of their cancer and associated genomic data, which combines for a poor prognosis and provides the impetus to identify useful tools and patient specific approaches. Primary cell 3D cell culture models have received renewed recognition, not only due to their ability to better mimic the complexity of in vivo tumors, but as a potential bridge between in vitro and in vivo studies. 3D cell cultures represent a more relevant physiological model that can be now efficiently developed using ultra low attachment surface plates that can be quickly adapted for High Throughput Screening. In this presentation by Virneliz Fernandez-Vega, Scientific Associate from Scripps Research, she will discuss how advances in their lab, in combination with their academic and industry partners, has made possible in-vitro/ex-vivo 3-dimensional (3D) cancer models for use in a rapid, highly miniaturized, and cost-effective fashion that permits direct drug response profiling to be generated in a phenotypic manner that is patient specific. She will be presenting a summary of the different fully automated 3D screening that they have successfully implemented in Corning spheroid 1536-well microplates format to screen large chemical libraries. This includes studies of GBM, pancreas and NSCLC models.