A fruitful year for EDIReX, the EurOPDX Research Infrastructure

The new EurOPDX Research Infrastructure (RI) aims at improving cancer drug development success rates through the enablement of high-quality preclinical research using patient-derived cancer xenografts (PDXs). PDX models, developed by transplanting pieces of a patient tumour into immune-deficient mice, maintain features and genetic profiles of the original patient tumours, and are increasingly recognised in the literature as reliable models to predict treatment efficacy and discover sensitivity and resistance biomarkers with immediate clinical relevance.

Now three years into the EDIReX H2020 grant (“EurOPDX Distributed Infrastructure for Research on PDX”, project no. 731105), and despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the activity of animal facilities, the project has reached several milestones in 2020. In particular, almost 1000 established PDX models from 9 different cancer types have now been integrated and curated into the new EurOPDX Data Portal (dataportal.europdx.eu). Also, common standards and procedures established under the project are used by project partners for studies under the grant, and notably the provision of trans-national access by the 6 nodes of the RI to a total of 16 different users selected following three competitive calls for proposals. 2021 will see the finalization of these projects and the dissemination of our standards. Also, we hope to hold our 3^rd EurOPDX Workshop in person in Weggis (Switzerland) on 4-6 October.

With Massimiliano Borsani, a science manager with 7 years of experience in ESFRI RIs, joining EDIReX in summer 2020 to reinforce the management team and work on the sustainability of the project, the EurOPDX RI aims at being a key partner in reaching the objectives of the Cancer Mission in the next years.

Follow the project on Twitter to know everything about its contribution to cancer research and future results and sustainability plans: @EurOPDX.