Rebelo de Almeida, C. et al. Commun Biol 3, 299 (2020)

The humanized monoclonal antibody bevacizumab is supposed to inhibit the angiogenesis that solid tumors need to grow and spread, but clinical success has been inconsistent, with the therapy effective for some cancers but of negligible benefit for others. To make a personalized mouse for each and every tumor can be time- and cost-prohibitive, but larval zebrafish models are emerging as a quicker and less expensive option for screening potential therapeutics.

Researchers at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Lisbon recently screened for bevacizumab responses in larval zebrafish xenografted with triple negative breast cancer and colorectal cancer cell lines, as well as ‘zAvatars’ bearing tumor samples taken from patients. The models revealed differences in how the drug impacted metastasis depending on the tumor, with the personalized zebrafish mirroring clinical response in their respective patients.