2019: Using Organoids For The Early Detection of Lung Cancer
This grant was funded in part by Upstage Lung Cancer
Tyler Jacks, PhD
Director, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT
David H. Koch
Professor of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Jacks Lab is using lung organoids (miniaturized lungs that are grown in a dish from healthy cells) to discover new methods for the early detection of lung cancer via a blood or lung fluid test. Using organoids, the lab will transform the healthy cells through gene modification to become cancerous cells. Once this occurs, they have a sample of early stage cancerous cells that they can compare with healthy cells. Their goal is to identify proteins that are expressed and secreted only in the cancerous cell group and not the healthy cell group. The expression of these proteins could then serve as a biomarker which could be tested for in blood or lung fluids to provide early, non-invasive detection of lung cancer.
In order to discover new methods for the early detection of lung cancer, we first need to study lung cancer in its earliest stages. Unfortunately, we currently lack the materials to do so—live patient tissue from early stage disease is not readily available for analysis, whereas most biobanked tissue is fixed, which limits the types of analyses we can perform on them. Mouse models provide us with a rich source of tumor tissue from different stages of the disease; however, it is technically challenging to isolate cells from nascent lesions due to their small size.
In order to circumvent these issues, the Jacks lab has begun using organoids, which are miniaturized organs (in this case, the lungs) that are grown in a dish from healthy cells. The benefits of using organoids include:
- The ability to study the cancerous cells immediately after transformation, within a week or even a few days;
- Having a large sample size—the organoid can be grown to obtain sufficient material for detailed analyses;
- Having a perfect point of comparison—the ability to compare cancer cells to their healthy counterparts enables us to make confident statements about what makes cancer cells unique.
Using organoids, the Jacks lab will transform the healthy cells through gene modification to become cancerous cells. Once this occurs, they have a sample of early stage cancerous cells that can be compared with healthy cells. Their goal is to identify proteins that are expressed and secreted only in the cancerous cell group and not the healthy cell group. The expression of these proteins could then serve as a biomarker which could be tested for in blood or lung fluids to provide early, non-invasive detection of lung cancer.
