Make in vivo metastasis screens a required step in drug discovery
Drug candidates are tested for shrinking tumours, almost never for stopping spread. A standard spread test would find anti-metastatic drugs we are throwing away.
Barcoded in vivo CRISPR and lineage-tracing screens can quantify seeding, survival in circulation and outgrowth as separate phenotypes. Very few programmes run them, so anti-metastatic activity is invisible during discovery. Funders could require a standard metastasis panel — spontaneous metastasis from orthotopic implantation plus a barcoded seeding assay — from any grant or programme claiming anti-metastatic intent.
- Metastasis is understood least and studied last · Metastasis causes about nine in ten cancer deaths but gets a small fraction of research money and almost no trials of its own.
- Preclinical models that do not predict people · Nine in ten cancer drugs that work in mice fail in humans. Our models are the reason.
- Failures are hidden · Negative trials, failed drugs and abandoned programmes are rarely published, so the same mistakes are repeated.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaScore every preclinical model by how often it predicted the clinical result
Shares Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI, Patient-derived xenografts, Patient-derived organoids, Failures are hidden.
- IdeaBuild laboratory models of the organs cancer spreads to
Shares Patient-derived xenografts, Patient-derived organoids, Metastasis is understood least and studied last, Preclinical models that do not predict people.
- IdeaAn open model bank for the rare tumours nobody has models for
Shares Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI, DepMap (Cancer Dependency Map), Patient-derived xenografts, Patient-derived organoids.
- IdeaBarcode patient-derived tumours to watch which clones win under each drug
Shares Patient-derived xenografts, CRISPR functional genomics, Patient-derived organoids, Preclinical models that do not predict people.
- IdeaShared reference organoid and PDX panels that every lab can test against
Shares Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI, Patient-derived xenografts, Patient-derived organoids, Preclinical models that do not predict people.
- IdeaA drug screen that only rewards killing sleeping cancer cells
Shares DepMap (Cancer Dependency Map), CRISPR functional genomics, Patient-derived organoids, Preclinical models that do not predict people.
- IdeaA public atlas of drug-pair responses across a thousand patient-derived organoids
Shares Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI, DepMap (Cancer Dependency Map), Patient-derived organoids, Preclinical models that do not predict people.
- IdeaA funded organoid and PDX panel as the go/no-go gate before IND-enabling money
Shares Cancer Models (PDCM Finder) & HCMI, Patient-derived xenografts, Patient-derived organoids, Preclinical models that do not predict people.