Patient-derived cancer organoids to improve bowel cancer care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Development of patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids as advanced models for evaluating anti-cancer treatments
IRAS ID
279683
Contact name
David G. Jayne
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Patients with advanced colorectal cancers are at risk of developing recurrent disease. To address this, they are offered additional chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not work for everyone and carries the risk of serious side-effects, meaning that many patients do not benefit. Precision medicine aims to address this problem by ensuring that patients only receive anti-cancer treatments, if there is a good chance that their cancer will respond. A hurdle in developing precision medicines, is the ability to test them on cancer models in the laboratory that behave similarly to cancers in the human body. Traditionally, laboratory cancer models have used cells, derived from human cancers grown as single monolayers of cells. These lack the complexity of cancers in the body, and as a result, experiments to test new treatments are limited in their ability to predict response in humans. Recent efforts to develop more “life-like” cancer models have included cells grown in various 3-dimensional structures. Whilst these have advanced the usefulness of laboratory cancer models, there is still a gap in being able to predict actual clinical response, which has been attempted to be filled by the use of animal models. A recent exciting advancement in human cancer models, is the ability to grow “mini-tumours” directly from patient tumour samples in the laboratory. These mini-tumours are grown from fragments of actual patient cancers, and are called organoids. Organoids closely replicate the original cancer, making them a valuable resource for testing and developing new therapies. In this study, we aim to develop a library of protocols that could be used to successfully generate organoids from patient tissue. We will study how organoids respond to treatments in comparison to traditional cell models. We also aim to develop a microfluidic device that will streamline experiments involving the use of organoids.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/YH/0209
Date of REC Opinion
28 Jul 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion