Tumor ‘organoids’ may speed cancer treatment

A new method can quickly test hundreds of drugs on mini tumors grown from patients’ own cells

mini tumor

TUMOR IN A DISH  By growing patients’ cancer cells into mini tumors (many of the round dots seen at the edge of this image) in the lab, researchers are developing methods to quickly identify potential drugs for rare, hard-to-treat cancers.

Alice Soragni

SAN DIEGO — Collecting cancer cells from patients and growing them into 3-D mini tumors could make it possible to quickly screen large numbers of potential drugs for ultra-rare cancers.