Last month, November, represented Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month; a time to focus on the challenges posed by one of the most aggressive and lethal cancer types. Pancreatic cancer accounts for approximately 3% of all diagnosed cancers in Europe, with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) being the most common subtype.
At InnoSer, we recognize the complexity of finding a treatment for pancreatic cancer and offer a comprehensive suite of preclinical research tools tailored to accelerate your preclinical research efforts. Our oncology platform’s capabilities include:
- Syngeneic mouse models such as Pan02: pancreatic cancer’s immunosuppressive microenvironment poses significant challenges for treatment, highlighting the importance of obtaining initial efficacy data in (mouse) models with intact immune systems.
- Cell line-derived xenograft (CDX) models for pancreatic cancer: CDX models using cancer cells such as PaCa-2, HPAF-II and Panc-1, provide a useful tool for performing proof-of-concept studies using human cancer cells as opposed to rodent ones. However, CDX models lack the tumor cell and stromal cell heterogeneity of primary pancreatic tumors, thus, predicting clinical responses may not be always reliable.
- Patient-derived organoid (PDO) and xenograft (PDX) models: Pancreatic cancer is notorious for its heterogeneity and resistance to treatment, underscoring the importance of using predictive preclinical models closely reflective of the patients’ tumor biology. Moreover, PDX models address the common limitations associated with CDX models.
Patient-derived tumor samples maintain the original tumor’s genetic and histological characteristics, offering you highly translational insights into response to novel therapeutics (such as chemotherapeutics, targeted agents, and combination therapies) and tumor progression. InnoSer’s patient samples Biobank features multiple patient-derived PDAC tumor samples, applicable for both in vitro organoid studies and in vivo PDX (example growth curve of a PDAC sample shown in Figure 1 below) with highly relevant genetic and treatment profiles.
FIGURE 1. Example tumor growth of PDAC PDX from InnoSer’s Biobank. Tumor growth curves of InnoSer’s PDX of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma sample sc. implanted into female SCID mice. This model offers a compelling genetic profile with KRAS (KRAS mutations are present in over 90% of PDAC cases) and JAK2 mutations. For a detailed overview, reach out to our team and obtain the full tumor sample profile including patient information, parental genomics and DNA HotSpot mutations, histopathology, and RNAseq data here.