A major opportunity in ovarian cancer research lies in the access to and utilization of patient tumour cells, particularly following debulking surgery and during the drainage of malignant ascites in advanced-stage patients. This availability has allowed researchers to leverage patient-derived organoids (PDOs) to better understand the disease and establish a resource for efficient therapeutic testing on more clinically relevant models. Importantly, long-term PDO cultures can retain the genetic mutations and copy-number changes present in the original patient tumours, making them valuable for translational research.

This collaborative project aims to expand and study PDOs for rare types of ovarian cancer, starting with low-grade serous and clear cell carcinoma. Specific aims include:

1) Performing single-cell transcriptomic analysis of PDOs (led by Cook lab)

2) Performing standard therapeutics testing of PDOs (led by Dr. Trevor Shepherd’s lab)

3) Developing PDO xenograft (“PDO-X”) mouse models for in vivo studies (led by Dr. Jim Petrik’s lab)

All results from molecular and cellular characterization of PDOs will be aligned with de-identified clinical data, including age at diagnosis, stage/grade, histopathology, BRCA status, treatment, and CA-125 monitoring to enable future clinically-relevant research. A defined culture protocol and standardized molecular workup will be developed for prospective studies so that future samples and data may contribute to the expanding PDO biorepository.