NCI’s Patient-Derived Models Repository Announces Its First Molecularly Characterized Patient/PDX-derived Organoid Cultures

The NCI Patient-Derived Models Repository (PDMR) is a publicly accessible, national repository for early-passage, molecularly characterized patient-derived models developed from patients with solid tumors.

The PDMR is releasing its first molecularly characterized patient/PDX-derived organoid cultures (PDOrgs).

With this release, 46 PDOrg cultures from a variety of cancer types are now available. As culture methodologies are established for other diagnoses, like adult soft tissue sarcomas, new model types will be released.

Since 2017, the NCI PDMR has distributed viably cryopreserved PDX material, and more recently, patient/PDX-derived cancer cell cultures (PDCs) and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), to the research community. Release of the PDOrg cultures provides a more complex preclinical translational model for researchers who have limited access to animal facilities. Release of these early-passage, molecularly characterized organoid models expands the use of the PDMR by providing research opportunities to investigators who are interested in a more complex model system to do mid-throughput drug screening. The PDMR is actively working to establish matched PDX – PDOrg – PDC model sets wherever possible so researchers can pursue basic and translational biologic questions across these model types.

PDMR Facts

• To date, 234 public PDX models have been developed from 227 unique patients. In addition, there are currently 72 PDC models and 125 CAF models available.
• The PDMR continually adds new models to the database. In 2018, several new cancer types were added to the PDMR collection, including some rare cancers.
• Models are clinically-annotated with molecular information available in an easily accessible database.
• The PDMR includes genetic ancestry for all public models and germline sequence for a subset of the models.

Find out how to request models, or contact the NCI PDMR with questions: NCI_PDM_Repository@mail.nih.gov.