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David Lum, director of Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Preclinical Research Resource (PRR), plays a unique role in the research conducted at the institute and University of Utah. His group provides the expertise to carry out in vivo cancer studies and generates models that researchers need for their studies. 

Since its inception, the PRR has grown from a two-person effort led by Alana Welm, a leading breast cancer researcher at Huntsman Cancer Institute, to a 15-person team that generates mouse models for many types of cancer.

The PRR offers multiple types of models, including patient derived xenograft (PDX) models. These PDX models—which Lum said are considered the gold standard of cancer modeling—are generated by taking patient samples from the clinic and putting them in mice. Investigators can then use these mouse models to test new cancer treatments to see if they have antitumor properties.

The group’s first priority is to assist U cancer researchers, but because these models are difficult and time consuming to make, investigators and companies from around the country frequently reach out to Lum about the models.

“They are especially of interest to industry, because they generally can’t get patient samples. Therefore, they can't make them themselves,” Lum said. While other research institutions can receive these models after initiating a material transfer agreement with the U, companies either sponsor research to make models or license the models they have already made.

Models developed by the PRR and Utah researchers can now be found in the labs of numerous research institutions and multiple companies, expanding the impact of the research done here at the U.

Developing new models

Lum and the PRR are also constantly improving the models and services they provide. In addition to increasing the types of cancers they can provide models for, they also look to offer different kinds of models.

Recently, a group of investigators at the U started a program around colon cancer, and as part of the program grant, they needed the PRR to make both colorectal PDX models and patient derived organoids (PDO). Patient derived organoids are similar to PDX models, but they don’t require mice and allow researchers to do more tests, more quickly. 

At the same time, biotech, oncology and pharma companies had approached the university with interest in similar models, so Lum and his collaborators turned to the Ascender Grant to help them create a product that could benefit the new colon cancer group and the other interested companies.

With the Ascender Grant funding, Lum is taking both colorectal cancer samples and normal samples the PRR had gathered years ago but never fully developed and generating PDX models and patient derived organoids with matching non-tumor organoids, all with the appropriate genomics data.

“This will be a unique set of models that could be valuable to industry but also pretty important for the investigators here at HCI for the grant,” Lum said.

These colon cancer models represent only one of the many efforts Lum, the PRR and U researchers are pursuing to improve the state of cancer research and cancer care in general.

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