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MIT News
Scientists unveil more than 600 new tissue models of human cancer
Scientists unveil more than 600 new tissue models of human cancer
Derived from patient tumor samples and available to researchers around the world, the cells will aid the development of new cancer treatments.
Anne Trafton<br>MIT News
Publication Date:
August 5, 2026
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To advance targeted cancer treatments, an international team led by researchers at MIT and collaborating institutions developed nearly 700 new cancer models derived from patient tumors, which they hope will aid in drug development.
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Credit: NIH, iStock, MIT News
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To advance targeted cancer treatments, an international team led by researchers at MIT and collaborating institutions developed nearly 700 new cancer models derived from patient tumors, which they hope will aid in drug development.
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Credit: NIH, iStock, MIT News
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To develop new targeted treatments for cancer, scientists need tissue models that accurately represent the genetic and molecular traits of the cancer they’re studying. An international team led by researchers at MIT’s Koch Institute, the Broad Institute, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and numerous other partnering institutions has developed nearly 700 new cancer models, derived from patient tumors, which they hope will aid in drug development.<br>These cells, which represent 25 different types of cancer, are now available for cancer researchers around the world to use. The project is described in a new open-access paper appearing today in Nature, with contributors from more than two dozen institutions.<br>The models are the result of a 10-year initiative, funded by the National Cancer Institute, to expand the number of patient-derived tissue models available. For most of these models, the researchers converted tumor cells into organoids — 3D cell cultures that can survive indefinitely and mimic the genetic and molecular features of the tumors that they originally came from.<br>This type of model could help researchers identify new drug targets and test potential new treatments for many more types of cancer.<br>“Since the sequencing of the human genome and the analysis of cancer genomes over the last 20 years, we have had many ideas about cancer targets, but we need experimental systems in the lab to validate those targets and launch drug discovery projects,” says Jesse Boehm, a research scientist at the Koch Institute and one of the senior authors of the study.<br>From tumors to organoids<br>The Human Cancer Models Initiative was launched in 2016, following the completion of the Cancer Genome Atlas, an effort to catalog the genomic alterations responsible for cancer growth.<br>For the atlas project, researchers sequenced cancer cell samples from thousands of patients. That work revealed that the diversity of tumor genetic profiles was not fully captured by the roughly 1,000 patient-derived cancer cell lines that existed at the time.<br>“We realized that a thousand wasn’t enough, that the international community needed to invest in many more thousands to represent all cancers, all genotypes, all ethnicities,” Boehm says. “Most existing models come from European and Southeast Asian patients, and many rare cancers are missing.”<br>Funded by the...