OncoTrack

OncoTrack attempts to address the core problems of drug-based cancer therapies: the low response rate of patients to their therapies, as well as its inevitable consequence, the low approval rates of oncology drugs. Only about 10% of cancer drug candidates entering clinical development are granted marketing authorization. Our program is based on two seminal developments: significant progress in our ability to analyze the molecular characteristics of individual tumors and patients (predominantly, but not exclusively, due to advancements in DNA sequencing techniques) and through the development of sophisticated computational models, which can convert this abundance of data into predictions. To address this challenge, the OncoTrack consortium recruited over 300 colon cancer patients (stages I-IV) and developed a pre-clinical platform generating a compendium of drug sensitivity data totalling > 4,000 assays testing 16 clinical drugs on patient-derived in vivo and in vitro models. This large biobank of tumors, organoid culturess and xenografts, with extensive omics data comparing donor tumors and derived models, provides a resource for advancing our understanding of colon cancer.