Patient Derived Tumor Xenograft Models

Patient Derived Tumor Xenograft Models: Promise, Potential and Practice offers guidance on how to conduct PDX modeling and trials, including how to know when these models are appropriate for use, and how the data should be interpreted through the selection of immunodeficient strains. In addition, proper methodologies suitable for growing different type of tumors, acquisition of pathology, genomic and other data about the tumor, potential pitfalls, and confounding background pathologies that occur in these models are also included, as is a discussion of the facilities and infrastructure required to operate a PDX laboratory.

Dr. Rajesh Uthamanthil is the director of Comparative Medicine program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA. He received Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and Veterinary Sciences from Kerala Agricultural University, PhD in Comparative Biosciences from the University of Wisconsin Madison and completed a post doctoral fellowship at Rice University. Dr. Uthamanthil has more than 16 years of experience in animal models of human disease, most of it focused on cancer. Dr. Uthamanthil also directs the PDX core that support studies using PDX models at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. Uthamanthil has more than 20 peer reviewed publications in the area of translational research, has authored/co-authored two book chapters and has made more than 30 presentations in national and international conferences meetings. Dr. Peggy Tinkey received degrees in Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine from Texas A&M University, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Pathology at Baylor College of Medicine and is a Diplomate of the American College of Laboratory Animal Medicine. She is a Professor of Comparative Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she directs the animal research program Dr. Tinkey has extensive experience in animal models of cancer, with an emphasis of mouse cancer models that includes genetically engineered and mutant mouse models, cell line xenograft models, and patient-derived xenograft models. She has published over 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters on animal cancers and cancer models. She combines her expertise in animal models with extensive experience in regulatory medicine and has served on the UTMDACC institutional animal care and use and biosafety committees for more than 20 years. Dr. Elisa de Stanchina is the Director of the MSKCC Antitumor Assessment Core Facility, and over the past 8 years has overseen its evolution into a state-of-the-art “Mouse Hospital” that fosters preclinical drug development and coordinates efforts from basic scientists and clinicians to ensure that mouse trials effectively mimic treatment plans of human patients. She is an Associate Lab Member in the Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Her lab works closely with investigators to establish mouse models of cancer and has developed one of the largest Academic PDX core support programs in the U.S., with an extensive bank of clinically annotated models available to MSKCC Investigators and their collaborators. Her work has resulted in over 65 publications in prestigious peer-reviewed journals and she has recently authored one of the chapters in the new edition of the “Mouse Models of Cancer” book by CSHL Press.