Growing Cancer Cells Outside the Body: Problems and Potential Stem Cell Based Solutions

Many experiments in cancer research require a supply of expandable cancer cells. Current methods for growing cancer cells outside the body are known to lose relevance to a patient's cancer over time. Organoids are a developing technology that uses stem cells to grow 3D human tissues. My research shows that by growing glioma cells inside of organoids, the glioma cells are pushed into a cell state that is more similar to what is found in a primary patient's tumor. Using primary samples with matched cell lines, I track how the glioma cells gene expression changes after being cocultured with organoids, where we observe the reactivation of pathways related to neuronal communication and connectivity. These are known to be important for glioma development and this shows that providing glioma cells with a complex environment of healthy cells causes reactivation of genetic pathways present in a patient's tumor, potentially allowing for more accurate cancer therapeutic testing through use of organoid based cancer models.