In vitro cellular assays and in vivo xenograft models are traditionally used in anticancer drug development. However, it turned clear that artificially grown tumor cells or xenografts act dramatically different than clinical tumors. This led to the shift from cell line models to genetically engineered models (GEMs) and patient-derived tumor xenograft models (PDTXs) in the preclinical drug development, not only having better molecular similarity to the clinical disease, but providing similar microenvironment, metabolic and vascularization properties as well.

Our aim is to use this model bank in collaboration with other research groups interested in cancer drug development, tumor phenotype biomarker research, tumor evolution, tumor genetic background, tumor heterogeneity and therapy resistance experiments. As reportedly 95% of drug candidates entering clinical trials fail, mostly because lack of effect and safety, and we believe that using better models drastically reduce the unnecessary clinical testing cost during drug development.