Congratulations to Dr Neil Carleton for being awarded this year’s Hamilton Translational Science award from the MSTP program. (Curiously, Dr Nolan Priedigkeit MD PhD, another prior trainee from the Lee-Oesterreich lab, was the first awardee a few years back)”
The Institute for Precision Medicine hosted the NCI-BCRF-Komen workshop on “Patient-Derived Breast Cancer Organoids: Challenges & Opportunities” on May 21-22, 2025 at The Assembly in Pittsburgh, PA.
The meeting was co-organized by myself, Sandra Demaria, Ariella Hanker, and Senthil Muthuswamy.
We brought together 45 investigators to discuss the state-of-the-art in PDO research and gaps that present barriers to progress.
The lively event raised several excellent points about how PDOs are credentialed and used in research. In particular, their use in predicting patient response to therapy (e.g., co-clinical trials) was a hotly discussed topic.
The National Institutes of Health recently promoted organoid models to reduce the reliance on animal models, and we hope that these novel alternative metholodologies will provide new avenues for precision medicine.
We thank The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and Susan G. Komen for sponsoring the workshop and advocates Bob Riter and Jamie LaScala who participated in a panel discussion on obtaining tissue for research.
Outcomes and deliverables of the workshop will be a white paper on best practices in breast cancer PDO research and hopefully a new network that can share PDO and data and accelerate this research.
If you are interested in participating in the Breast Organoid Working Group (BOWG) contact Dr. Adrian Lee.
Julia Foldi MD and colleagues from the Lee-Oesterreich laboratory collaborated with Natera Inc to report on retrospective analysis of real-world data in 66 patients with metastatic ILC using a clinically validated, personalized, tumor-informed ctDNA assay (Signatera). Serial ctDNA testing in patients with mILC is feasible and may enable personalized surveillance and real-time therapeutic monitoring.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40324116
Members of the lab attended this year’s ILC symposium in Leuven, Belgium.
Another successful participation in the annual Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk is in the books! The lab also hosted a table for information on the “Hope for OTHERS” tissue donation program.
Eight members of The Pink Warriors, the only breast cancer club at the University of Pittsburgh, joined the lab for a tour of the facilities, Wednesday night, February 7, 2024. They received a tour of the building from Dr. Lee and both Drs. Lee and Oesterreich spoke to them about breast cancer research and answered questions. Afterward they enjoyed a catered dinner. They learned a great deal from the lab tour and lab members were impressed with their questions. Contact information was exchanged and plans were laid for them to participate with the lab in the upcoming Rush to Crush Cancer and the Susan G. Komen More Than Pink Walk, both May 19, 2024.
Several lab members volunteered at the Research tent at the annual Susan G. Komen “More Than Pink” walk in Pittsburgh. Adrian and Steffi were also interviewed by the local media.
Steffi Oesterreich and Lauren Brown were recently featured in the “Why We Ride” video for the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Race to Crush Cancer ride.
