Next&Bio, a precision medicine platform based on organoids, will make a poster presentation of a study confirming the possibility of establishing a patient sample-based pancreatic and biliary tract cancer organoid model.
The presentation will be made at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Digestive Cancer Symposium (ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium) from Jan. 19-21.
The study aimed to detect cancer cells in patient-derived organoids and analyze tumor heterogeneity based on samples from pancreatic and biliary tract cancer patients. Professor Kim Jae-hwan of the Gastroenterology Department at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital and Professor Suh Min-seok and his team at Korea University conducted the research.
Next&Bio produced the organoids through the three-dimensional cultivation of the samples of pancreatic cancer and biliary tract cancer patients, including pathologically negative samples. Afterward, the research team analyzed the organoids using the “single-cell RNA sequencing technology,” which can see various DNA information at a glance.
As a result of analyzing cultivated pancreatic and biliary tract cancer organoids, genes suggesting malignant tumors were expressed even in samples where no malignant cells have been observed in pathological tests. The researchers also confirmed heterogeneity, like intra-tumor heterogeneity in cancer patients.
Through these processes, Next&Bio showed the possibility that non-surgical samples alone can cultivate pancreatic cancer and biliary tract cancer organoids, that these organoids may be more sensitive than conventional pathological tests, and that they can use it as a bio-avatar by maintaining genetic heterogeneity between cells in the tumor.
“Pancreatic cancer has a variety of cell-specific intra-tumor heterogeneity, which results in drug resistance and poor treatment prognosis. Especially when samples are collected in a non-surgical manner, pathologically negative findings may appear because cancer cells are not sufficiently included in the test tissue,” Professor Kim said. “However, this study successfully tested an organoid model with only pancreatic and biliary tract cancer samples obtained in a non-surgical manner. It is significant because it has established an analysis pipeline for tumor heterogeneity.”
Next & Bio is building an R&D ecosystem using organoids by establishing an organoid bank with domestic medical institutions based on standardized technology that can produce organoids uniformly.
In addition, many projects are underway to develop cell therapy and new anticancer drugs aside from the new-drug substance validation and animal replacement analysis services, precision medical diagnosis services, and medical device businesses,