A decade-long international effort has produced the largest publicly available collection of patient-derived cancer organoids to date, giving researchers a powerful new way to study tumors in the laboratory. The Human Cancer Model Initiative (HCMI), led by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) in partnership with academic and clinical institutions worldwide, has generated 665 organoid models representing 25 cancer types. The models are now available to scientists internationally through a resource described in a new study published in Nature.
Organoids are three-dimensional clusters of living cells grown from tissue taken from patients. Unlike conventional cancer cell lines, which can acquire extensive genetic and behavioral changes after prolonged culture, patient-derived organoids are designed to preserve key characteristics of the original tumor. They can reproduce aspects of tumor architecture, genetic variation, cell behavior and treatment response, allowing scientists to investigate cancer biology in a controlled laboratory environment.
The HCMI collection includes organoids derived from pancreatic, breast, endometrial, colorectal, bladder, ovarian, head and neck, and lung cancers, among other malignancies. Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Northwell Health led one of the largest contributing teams, providing more than 150 models to the international compendium. Collaborators at the University of Verona in Italy and Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands also played major roles, including the development and distribution of dozens of pancreatic and colorectal cancer models.
The resource goes beyond living organoid cultures. It links many models to matched tissue from the original tumors, detailed clinical information and molecular data, including DNA and RNA sequencing, transcriptomic profiles and epigenetic measurements. Of the 665 models, 522 include comprehensive clinical data, while 153 represent rare cancers. The collection also contains 71 models from participants of non-European ancestry, addressing a long-standing problem in biomedical research: the underrepresentation of diverse patient populations in preclinical studies.
Researchers created 43 models from pediatric or adolescent patients, and approximately 23 percent of successful models came from rare cancer types. This breadth could make the collection especially valuable for studying cancers that are difficult to obtain in sufficient numbers for conventional experiments. Rare tumor subtypes often have few established cell lines and limited clinical trial data, meaning that organoids may provide an important experimental bridge between individual patient samples and broader biological discoveries.
To ensure that the organoids remained faithful to their source tumors, the HCMI teams established standardized production and quality-control procedures. At CSHL’s Genome Center, researchers used cancer hotspot sequencing to monitor key genetic alterations and assess the identity and quality of developing models. Organoids can also be expanded and cryopreserved, enabling laboratories to perform repeated experiments on the same tumor-derived material without requiring a new biopsy or continuously collecting fresh tissue.
The models are already being incorporated into drug-discovery research. Because organoids can be grown in multiwell plates, scientists can expose them to many drugs or drug combinations at different concentrations and measure effects on cell survival, proliferation and morphology. This approach could help identify therapies that are more likely to work against a particular tumor while revealing resistance mechanisms. Researchers emphasize, however, that organoid drug testing is not yet a substitute for clinical trials and must be interpreted alongside patient data and other biological models.
The HCMI organoids have also expanded the Cancer Dependency Map, or DepMap, a major research program designed to identify genetic and molecular vulnerabilities that cancer cells depend on for survival. By testing diverse organoid models, investigators can examine whether a potential dependency is shared across tumors or limited to a particular genetic background, tissue type or patient population. Such information may help researchers prioritize therapeutic targets and develop more precise strategies for tumors that do not respond to existing treatments.
The initiative was built around close coordination between clinical teams, hospital biospecimen repositories and laboratory scientists. Northwell Health, which treats more than 19,000 cancer patients annually, helped provide access to patient samples and established a pipeline connecting clinical care with experimental research. The project’s leaders say that patient consent and participation were fundamental to creating the resource. By making these models and their associated data available worldwide, the HCMI aims to accelerate cancer research, improve the reproducibility of preclinical experiments and move the field closer to personalized treatment decisions.
Subject of Research: Patient-derived organoid models for cancer research, precision medicine and therapeutic discovery
Article Title: A compendium of next-generation patient-derived models for diverse cancers
News Publication Date: 5 August 2026
Web References: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: https://www.cshl.edu/ ; Northwell Health: https://www.northwell.edu/ ; Nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10843-7
References: Nature, “A compendium of next-generation patient-derived models for diverse cancers.” DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10806-y
Image Credits: Hardik Patel/Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Keywords: Organoids, cancer research, patient-derived models, personalized medicine, cancer genomics, translational research, transcriptomics, epigenomics, drug screening, tumor biology
