EurOPDX at AACR Annual Meeting 2019

Both the EurOPDX Research Infrastructure and EurOPDX consortium were present at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, from the 29th March to the 3rd April 2019.

The AACR Annual meeting is a renowned forum, covering a full spectrum of cancer research topics. EurOPDX representatives were present in several themes, highlighting the research advances that they are making, whilst also building collaborations to extend the reach of the EurOPDX community around the world. A few highlights of EurOPDX at AACR 2019 include:

1. Our EurOPDX RI coordinating partners from the University of Torino, Candiolo Cancer Institute, presented several advances in their research towards a better understanding and new treatment strategies for colorectal cancer. This included the presentation of late-breaking research highlighting the development of a powerful preclinical tool to validate gene function & identify novel pharmacological vulnerabilities in colorectal cancer by matching and deriving 2D cell-lines from PDX models for which original patient germline gDNA is available. - Read the full abstract here

2. Partners of the EurOPDX RI involved in the development of the EurOPDX Data Portal (particularly colleagues from the PDX Finder at EMBL-EBI, Hinxton, UK) met with representatives from a similar initiative in the USA: the PDXNet, for a break-out session to discuss synergies and future collaborations. Discussions were made about the similarities and differences in approaches between the groups, and continued collaborative efforts were agreed in order to harmonise standards (particularly with regards to the mode and types of data collected), and extend the utility of both repositories by including new data types. - Read the full abstract here

3. One of our SME partners, OcellO B.V. (Leiden, The Netherlands), presented several posters describing the innovative research that they are conducting on 3D PDX-derived tumour cultures. These advances bridge the gap between in vitro and in vivo studies, increase the efficiency of early drug discovery, and also, importantly, reduce our reliance on animal models in experiments. - Read the full abstract here

The full AACR 2019 programme & abstract book is available here: Online abstract viewer.