‘In vitro clinical trials’ platform for drug testing in patient-derived ex vivo 3D cultured human tumor tissues

Abstract

Introduction: Despite the widespread utilization of animal models in preclinical drug research these do not fully represent the complexity of human cancer, which leads to significant failure rates for anticancer drugs in clinical development. In recent years, 3D organotypic cell culture models, such as organoids, have emerged to help bridge the gap between conventional in vitro models and patients. However, organoids are clonal and lack tumor associated cells, such as fibroblasts, T cells (TIL) and other immune cells which both modulate the responses to drugs and are themselves important drug targets.