Concepts of Precision Medicine in Breast Cancer

Abstract

Support: No funding was received in the publication of this article. Q. Could you tell us a little about the latest research in organoids and biomimetic platforms in precision medicine? Precision medicine aims to utilize information about a patient’s tumor, including gene alterations that may aid in the identification of effective therapies. Recent advances have allowed researchers to combine genomic analysis with ex vivo drug screens. The opportunity to develop preclinical models that retain the tumor’s basic characteristics provides a platform for biomarker discovery and highthroughput drug screening. Patient-derived tumor xenografts have emerged as powerful systems to study many cancer types by growing tumor cells in immunocompromised mice. Advances in this area have focused on trying to improve engraftment rates and introduce the patient’s own immune cells. For more rapid and less costly screens, the patient’s tumor cells are now also cultured in the laboratory in 3D as organoids, allowing us to screen thousands of candidate drugs and drug combinations that have the potential to be used in the clinic. The future of personalized medicine resides in being able to incorporate cells of the microenvironment in state-of-the-art biomimetic platforms. This method of screening will better account for the influence of the cells that are adjacent to the tumor, known to influence the growth of cancers and their response to treatment.