The staggering high failure rate of clinical trials for oncology drugs can be attributed to many factors, including efficacy and safety issues not flagged during preclinical R&D. Too often, neither in vitro nor in vivo models can adequately recapitulate the complexity of the human tumor microenvironment (TME) or predict patient response to clinical treatment protocols. Translational human 3D cell culture models, such as patient-derived tumor organoids, have begun to bridge the gap between tissue culture systems and patients in the clinic. However, even in these advanced models, the endogenous cells in the TME, such as tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), fibroblasts, macrophages and other immune cells are typically absent. These TME components have been shown to express important drug targets and play a critical role in both tumor progression and modulation of the response to drugs.

Dr. Price will present  a novel platform that combines short-term 3D ex vivo tumor culture with high content image-based analysis. He will describe how fresh patient tumor tissue from pleural fluid, ascites, surgical resections or biopsy can be tested ex vivo to preserve tumor heterogeneity and resident immune cells, obviating the need for artificial tumor-immune cell co-culture systems.