Sachs, N. et al. Cell https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.11.010 (2017).

The derivation of cancer cell lines from a wide diversity of patients has been critical for the study of disease mechanisms and drug susceptibility. Sachs et al. now extend the idea of a living biobank to cancer organoids, three-dimensional self-organizing cultures derived from adult stem cells. The researchers optimized a growth medium containing a number of niche factors for long-term culture of breast cancer organoids and generated an initial set of over 100 mammary epithelial organoid cultures, representing a wide range of breast cancer subtypes from primary and metastatic tumors. Cultures were characterized by histology, genomic sequencing and gene expression profiling; and they showed physiologically relevant responses when subjected to a high-throughput drug screen targeting the HER2 pathway. The biobank will be an important and expanding resource for the cancer research community.