Cancer Avatar Program
Personalized Cancer Treatments
When transplanting human patient tumor samples into a mouse, characteristics of the original specimen are retained, allowing for a personalized medicine approach to cancer treatment. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models are mouse avatars that allow researchers to test multiple drugs and drug combinations to find those best suited to the individual patient’s tumor.
CPMC Research Institute Advances Cancer Care
Sutter’s California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute is home to an innovative program furthering the organization’s cancer precision medicine research in Northern California through the Cancer Avatar Program—a living biology approach to translational research for fully individualized cancer care. Our cancer scientists work with oncologists and surgeons across the Sutter Health system to create cell culture and mouse models, or ‘avatars,’ of patients’ tumors, which will give oncologists key information about how well a patient’s tumor might respond to a particular therapy regimen. The Cancer Avatar Program has the potential to enable the delivery of truly personalized cancer care.
Types of Cancers Treated
The program focuses on eight common and aggressive cancers (melanoma, brain, colorectal, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, breast, and liver/biliary). From patient tumor resections, we have developed a comprehensive library of PDX models (and continue to add to our collection) to help identify and predict the most effective treatment(s) for our cancer patients. The program uses next-generation sequencing of both patient tissue and blood samples, for the identification of driver genes for diagnostic purposes as well as to monitor longitudinal tumor burden changes.
High-Throughput Screenings
Finally, a key aspect of the program is the use of an in-house high-throughput screening (HTDS) platform to assess the efficacy of single drugs or drug combinations against an individual patient’s tumor. The program is actively focused on developing novel therapeutic clinical trial concepts for clinically or molecularly defined patient subsets with the goal of testing the leads developed preclinically in CPMC cancer patients. To date, a number of investigator-initiated clinical trial concepts have been developed and are being evaluated at CPMC and other collaborating institutions.
- Automated dashboards for the identification of pathogenic mutations in longitudinal blood draws of cancer patients. Methods and Protocols, PMID: 37218906.
- Dual Targeting of EGFR and MTOR pathways inhibits glioblastoma growth by modulating the tumor microenvironment. Cells, PMID: 36831214.
- Pan-cancer pharmacogenomic analysis of patient-derived tumor cells utilizing clinically relevant drug exposures. Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, PMID: 37440705.
- miR-876-3p is a tumor suppressor on 9p21 that is inactivated in melanoma and targets ERK. J Transl Med. PMID: 39138582.
- Nanometer-scale distribution of PD-1 in the melanoma tumor microenvironment; J Radiol Oncol. PMID: 37539093.
- Pitfalls and Rewards of Setting Up a Liquid Biopsy Approach for the Detection of Driver Mutations in Circulating Tumor DNAs: Our Institutional Experience. Journal of Personalized Medicine, PMID: 36579573.
Give to the Cancer Avatar Project
Support the Cancer Avatar Project to advance personalized cancer treatments and improve patient outcomes.