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The mice with human tumours: Growing pains for a popular cancer model

Researchers had high hopes for patient-derived xenografts. Now they are contending with limitations in the clinic and the lab.
  1. Cassandra Willyard

    1. Cassandra Willyard is a freelance science journalist in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Nik Spencer/Nature

Lindsey Abel takes an anaesthetized mouse from a plastic container and lays it on the lab bench. With a syringe, she injects a slurry of pink cancer cells under the skin of the animal’s right flank. These cells once belonged to a person with tongue cancer, a former smoker whose disease recurred despite radiation and surgery. The mouse is the second rodent to harbour them, creating a model for cancer known as a patient-derived xenograft (PDX). The tumour that grows inside will provide cells that can be transferred to more mice.

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Nature 560, 156-157 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05890-8

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