OnCo
ideasIdea

Zebrafish avatars for a drug answer within a week

Tumour cells injected into transparent fish embryos grow in days, so several drugs can be compared in about a week, fast enough to help a patient who cannot wait.

Zebrafish patient-derived xenografts accept small cell numbers, are transparent for direct imaging of growth and metastasis, and give readouts in five to ten days at a fraction of mouse cost. Studies in colorectal and other cancers report concordance with patient outcomes. They lack an adaptive immune system and drug metabolism differs, so their role is rapid triage rather than definitive prediction.

Hypothesis
Zebrafish avatar drug ranking agrees with matched mouse PDX ranking in most cases and can be delivered in under two weeks from biopsy, making it usable in real clinical timeframes.
Rationale
Speed and sample requirement are the binding constraints on functional testing in advanced disease; a triage assay with even moderate accuracy has value if it narrows options before slower assays.
What would test it
Head-to-head on 50 patient samples: zebrafish, organoid and mouse rankings compared with each other and with the patient's response to the chosen regimen.
Maturity
preclinical evidence
Who has to act
research
Cost to try
Small (under $1M)
Years to first evidence
3
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