Overview
What makes this biobank important
Before this work, ovarian cancer research suffered from a major model problem:
- traditional immortalized cell lines poorly represented real tumors
- patient-derived xenografts (PDX) were slow and expensive
- ovarian cancer is extremely heterogeneous biologically
The Utrecht group demonstrated that patient-derived ovarian cancer organoids (PDOs):
- could be established reproducibly
- maintained tumor histology
- preserved genomic characteristics
- reflected drug response patterns seen clinically
- could be expanded long-term
- could support functional drug screening
Scale and composition of the biobank
The original published platform established:
- 56 organoid lines
- from 32 ovarian cancer patients
- spanning multiple ovarian tumor subtypes.
Importantly, it included:
- high-grade serous carcinoma
- low-grade serous carcinoma
- endometrioid carcinoma
- clear-cell carcinoma
- mucinous carcinoma
- borderline tumors
This breadth mattered because ovarian cancer is not one disease biologically.
Notes
Access via DAC-DGB-UMCU (DACDBG@umcutrecht.nl). Genetically modifiable, drug screening. Captures heterogeneity.