OnCo
ideasIdea

Make bespoke mouse cancer models in weeks with in vivo gene editing

Building a genetically engineered mouse for a specific cancer takes years. Editing genes directly in an adult mouse's organ can produce the same tumour in weeks.

Somatic genome editing by electroporation, viral delivery or lipid nanoparticles into a target organ produces autochthonous tumours with intact immune systems and native microenvironment, at a fraction of the time and cost of germline models. This has been demonstrated in lung, pancreas, liver and brain. Combinatorial guide libraries also allow genotype-response mapping in immunocompetent animals.

Hypothesis
Somatic-editing models reproduce the histology, immune contexture and therapy response of matched germline models while reducing time to model from years to under three months.
Rationale
Immunocompetent, genotype-defined models are the scarcest resource in translational oncology; the editing tools now exist and the bottleneck is standardisation and sharing of protocols.
What would test it
Direct comparison of somatic and germline models for three well-characterised genotypes on histology, immune profiling and response to a standard agent.
Maturity
preclinical evidence
Who has to act
research
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
3
Bottlenecks it attacks

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