The Wistar/MD Anderson/Penn

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the PDX (patient-derived PDXs) Development and Trial Centers Research Network (PDXNet) in September, 2017 to accelerate translational research using PDX datasets. The PDXNet comprises of four PDX Development and Trial Centers (PDTCs) and the PDX Data Commons and Coordinating Center (PDCCC).

We have banked 457 PDX of melanomas (Krepler et al. Cell Reports 2017, Garman et al. Cell Reports 2017). We observed in melanoma an overall take rate of 87% and tumor growth was achieved with as few as of 100 cells. The ~450 PDX are from patients representing all clinical and histological groups. The high success rate in generating PDX from patients’ tissues was observed for all biologic, genetic and clinical types of the disease except early primary melanomas and primary ocular melanomas. The majority (~180) of PDX are from treatment-naïve patients prior to therapy. On the other hand, we have specimens procured from patients whose tumors progressed on treatment with BRAF inhibitors, BRAF inhibitors plus MEK inhibitors, BRAF inhibitors plus anti-CTLA-4, BRAF inhibitors plus anti-PD-1, BRAF inhibitors plus anti-CTLA-4 plus anti-PD-1, and BRAF inhibitors plus MEK inhibitors plus combinations among checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-CTLA-4 & anti-PD-1 ... Read more.