Low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC) is a rare type of ovarian cancer that often affects younger women. It tends to grow slowly but can spread early, making it difficult to treat and often incurable. Sadly, there aren’t many treatment options available for women with LGSOC, partly because there aren’t enough good research models to study it.

To address this important gap, Dr. Carey and his team at the University of British Columbia are creating a comprehensive library of LGSOC research models that will be molecularly characterized (e.g., expression and mutations/alterations in key genes and proteins) and made accessible to all researchers studying LGSOC. The types of models being created include human-derived cell lines (e.g., cells that can be grown in a plastic dish) and patient-derived xenografts (e.g., growth of cancer cells in a mouse, to study the resulting tumour in a living system). These models represent an invaluable resource for further understanding of the biology of LGSOC and discovery of new treatment opportunities for patients.