Patient-Derived Xenograft Services

We work with clinicians or third parties to obtain patient consent and acquire human tumor specimens, and we collaborate with physicians and principal investigators within the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer Consortium.

Collected tissues are used for a variety of research purposes, including quality control and characterization, pathogen testing (IDEXX), development of organoids, development of cell lines, analysis and data collection, cyropreservation banking and comparative pathology analysis.

We can run your pharmacokinetic and pharmodynamic studies using PDX, CDX and allograft platforms. We offer all standard drug delivery methods. Our team can collect samples, monitoring twice a week during the treatment period, and can collect post-treatment samples for downstream analysis. Running these studies through the Preclinical Modeling core can shorten the gap between the preclinical and clinical phases of your work and speed up your tumor research.

We have short-term cryogenic storage space available in our core (liquid nitrogen rolling dewars), and we can facilitate long-term storage (liquid nitrogen with emergency backup). Our own PDX repository is split across two locations for safety. Many are available to academic investigators for research purposes.

We can provide pre-sectioned, unstained formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded, or FFPE, slides corresponding to a range of PDX models in our cryorepository.

NSG mice are our preferred strain for implanting patient samples, reviving frozen models and repassaging. The translational research model group (TRMS) within the Comparative Medicine shared resource supplies us with mice from their colonies of  NSG, NSG-SGM3, NRG and NBSGW mice. We can source other strains from vendors such as Jackson Labs and Envigo.

Before a new project begins, we work with you to understand your research goals and needs, to identify a model of interest, and to establish a scope of work and timeline. We build customized invoices from this scope of work. Our services include sourcing and logistics for materials and animals, as well as addressing all regulatory requirements. Throughout the life of the project, we provide regular progress updates, regularly share tumor monitoring data files and passage charts, and immediately communicate any emergent problems. All cost charging is done on a monthly basis.  

We can support your grant application by assisting with writing your vertebrate animal section, budgets, and program description and by providing letters of support.

Access our PDX program grant description.

Our staff are also available to train your lab members on PDX procedures and to advise your team on the generation and maintenance of PDX models and on preclinical trial design.