Lurie's Update: February 2020

With the introduction of many targeted therapies, the promise of precision medicine is quickly being realized. Through the novel research being undertaken by cancer biologist Xiao-Nan Li, MD, PhD, we have an enormous opportunity to create a future that offers highly specific, minimally toxic and dramatically effective treatment for all children impacted by cancer. As you know, Dr. Li is one of the world's leading experts in creating animal tumor models that parallel the unique attributes of individual tumors that develop in humans (patient-derived orthotopic xenograft or PDOX models). These models provide an important platform to study tumor biology and test new therapies for a wide variety of pediatric cancers.

Generous support provided through Cal's Angels has enabled Dr. Li to acquire an advanced high-throughput robotic drug screening system comprised of the Echo Liquid Handling technology and Access Laboratory Workstation that will give him the capacity to study thousands of potential new treatments with greater speed and efficiency than ever before. The most promising therapies will be translated back to his PDOX models for additional studies and, eventually, to future clinical trials in children. This technology was slated for delivery in November, however, the room originally identified to house the equipment was too small. A suitable new space was found and is now undergoing renovations.

To complement this platform, Dr. Li has also ordered a new cell culture incubator, the Thermo Fisher Cytomat 10 C450 automated incubator, which is designed to seamlessly integrate with the automated robot arm. This incubator and storage unit will support high capacity incubation of primary cell or cell line cultures with controlled humidity and temperature. With this incubator, Dr. Li will be able to screen thousands of compounds in different combinations on as many as seven tumors in the span of a week. Additionally, he is also anticipating the arrival of an extensive new drug library containing more than 100,000 drugs. As he waits for the high-throughput drug screening system to be up and running, Dr. Li continues to prepare his animal models to harvest enough cells for testing once everything is in place.