Preclinical Modeling Team
Welcome to our Preclinical Modeling (PCM) PDX-Plus team! We're passionate about advancing cancer research with our specialty in developing Patient-Derived Xenograft (PDX) models straight from patient tissues. But that's not all—we're also experts in a variety of in vivo studies using PDX models, cell lines, organoids, and other models.
Our team is here to help you design and plan your in vivo experiments, whether you need full project management or just a bit of support. We generate, revive, and serially passage PDX tissues in mice, adding to our growing tumor repository. For cell lines and organoids, you'll need to bring your own, but we'll handle the rest!
Whether you're looking for a single service or a full-service bundle, we're ready to answer your questions and discuss your research goals. Dive into our Services section below to learn how PDX and CDX models can take your science to the next level.
Schedule With Us
To schedule services with the Preclinical Modeling (PCM) or to get more information about how we can work with you, contact us:
Elizabeth Cromwell
PCM Supervisor
ON THIS PAGE
We collaborate with IRB-holding physician-researchers, clinicians, research teams, Precision Oncology, UW RAP, and soon, the Specimen & Data Access Network (SAN) within the Fred Hutch/University of Washington/Seattle Children's Cancer Consortium to obtain consented patient samples, for the development of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models.
We coordinate the acquisition of established PDX models from third parties like NIH’s Patient-Derived Models Repository. We also maintain a repository of shareable and proprietary PDX models. Plus, we help you navigate biosafety protocols, regulatory steps and pathogen testing requirements.
We engraft primary patient samples or PDX model tissues, cells, and organoid models into immunocompromised mice, which we can source for you. For cell line and organoid models, you provide the prepared model, and we handle the implantation. We revive, implant, and serially passage these models to generate tissues for downstream analysis, functional assays, pilot experiments, treatment studies, and more.
We monitor engrafted mice through visual health assessments, weight monitoring, caliper measurements, and imaging modalities, tailored to the cancer type, implant site, research goals, and budget. We track health, progression, latency, and take rate, recording all data in our research tumor monitoring project files. We review this data with stakeholders at regularly scheduled project meetings, ensuring transparency and collaboration.
We collect tissues and fluids for cryobanking, model development and expansion, fixation for H&E and IHC, sequencing, pathology, fresh for downstream functional assays or cell line development, and more.
We assist with writing vertebrate animal sections, budgets, program descriptions, and provide letters of support for grant applications.
At Fred Hutch, Shared Resources work together to provide comprehensive support for researchers. Our PCM team frequently consults and collaborates with other Shared Resources such as the Attending Veterinarian, Comparative Pathology, Experimental Histopathology, Genomics, and Biospecimen Processing to ensure your project needs are met. Our collaborative approach helps streamline your research and provides access to a wealth of expertise. Please see our publication page to explore research we have supported.