Human cancer tissue that is grown into 'organoids' in the laboratory could be used to test drug responses and to personalize therapy.
Organoids are 3D cultures of cancerous cells that better represent the composition of a tumour in the body than cancer-cell lines, according to Mathew Garnett at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and their colleagues. They built a small bank of 22 tumour organoids using samples from 20 people with colon cancer, and tested the effects of 83 cancer drugs on the cultures. They found correlations between the activity of specific genes and responses to particular drugs.
Some organoids were also uniquely sensitive or insensitive to certain compounds, so the approach might one day be used to tailor treatments for individuals.
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Organoids mimic tumours. Nature 521, 262–263 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/521262e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/521262e
