In one of the new studies, published June 26 in Science Advances, researchers from the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell developed a library of 220 organoids grown from patients’ tumors obtained with informed consent. They demonstrated that these tumor organoids retained key characteristics of the parent tumors over extended periods and showed promise in screens to identify unrecognized treatment candidates.

In the other study, published May 13 in Cell Reports Methods, the investigators developed lung tumor organoids that include T cells and other elements of the tumor’s immune environment—which is known to be a major factor in treatment responses.