10th – 13th June 2024

EPO is presenting at the EACR Meeting in Rotterdam

Poster #398: Pancreatic cancer patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models: establishment and thorough molecular characterization

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is associated with poor prognosis, reflected by a high mortality and incidence rate. To overcome current insufficient treatment options for PC, EPO has established a well characterized cohort of 45 PC PDX models with heterogeneous pheno- and genotype, which has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Cancers (Behrens D et al., Establishment and Thorough Characterization of Xenograft (PDX) Models Derived from Patients with Pancreatic Cancer for Molecular Analyses and Chemosensitivity Testing. Cancers (Basel). 2023, 15(24):5753). We compiled comprehensive information on genome data, mutational- and HLA status, morphology and in vivo growth as well as in vivo chemosensitivity towards standard of care drugs. This robust PDX panel allows the identification of biomarkers for treatment response and for new therapeutic vulnerabilities and broadens the spectrum of models of EPO.

Presenter: Dr. Diana Behrens

Poster #345: Long-term humanization of NOG mice and next-generation NOG strains to induce lineage-specific differentiation of immune cells for assessment of novel immune cell therapies, check point inhibitors, and immune cell engagers for translational immuno-oncology research.

The preclinical evaluation of novel immune therapies requires humanized immune system (HIS) mouse models. In previous studies we have demonstrated that either peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC), subsets of PBMCs like T and NK cells or CD34+ hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) can be used to establish a HIS model.

With the development of next-generation NOG mice, lineage-specific differentiation of immune cell sub-populations of interest can be supported. We investigated the long-term humanization in these different mouse strains. Furthermore we transplanted cell line-derived (CDX) or patient-derived (PDX) tumor xenografts on these HIS mice to establish a full model for human tumors for the investigation of checkpoint inhibitors (CPI), as well as novel cell therapies and immune cell engagers.

Poster #345 + #398 in Poster Session June 11, 11:00 am - 20:15 pm

Presenter: Dr. Diana Behrens; Author: Dr. Maria Stecklum