Supplement Application PDXNet collaboration

NCI issued a Program Announcement that will provide funding to enable non-PDXNet investigators to collaborate with PDXNet. The purpose of these awards, which would be awarded as supplements to existing qualifying NCI awards, is to make the resources of PDXNet available to the wider research community. The Program Announcement provides a more complete description of the program.

To help potential applicants identify opportunities for PDXNet collaboration, each of the PDX Development and Trial Centers (PDTCs) have provided a description of their PDTC's research goals as well as a description of their resources for the supplements. In addition, they have provided a list of models that will be made findable using PDXFinder (Table 1).

Below, we list the supplements funded in the first cycle. We anticipate a new round of funded supplements in the fall of 2024.

PDXNet Researchers and Area of Focus

Huntsman Cancer Center-Baylor College of Medicine

PIs: Drs Alana Welm, Bryan Welm, and Mike Lewis

Our project is focused on the ability of targeted agents inhibiting proteins implicated in tumor-initiating "cancer stem" cell biology to overcome their intrinsic chemotherapy resistance, thereby enhancing response.

Michael T. Lewis, Ph.D.
Professor, Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, Baylor College of Medicine Contact: 1 Baylor Plaza BCM600; N1210, Houston TX 77030
Tel: 713-798-3296
Fax: 713-798-1658

Relevant Websites:
https://bcm.corefacilities.org/service_center/show_external/4145?name=patient-derived-xenograft-and-advanced-in-vivo-models-core
https://www.bcm.edu/people-search/michael-lewis-25253
https://pdxportal.research.bcm.edu/pdxportal/?dswid=-5374

Alana Welm
Contact: alana.welm@hci.utah.edu

Bryan Welm
Contact: bryan.welm@hci.utah.edu

Washington University in St. Louis

PIs: Drs. Ramaswamy Govindan, Shunqiang Li, and Li Ding

The WU-PDTC has established a collection of over 360 genomically characterized PDX models in 20 different major cancer types to explore new combinatorial therapies for clinical translation.

Govindan Ramaswamy, PI, rgovindan@wustl.edu
Li Ding, PI, lding@wustl.edu
Shunqiang Li, PI. aqli@wustl.edu

Cynthia Ma, Co-Investigator, cma@dom.wustl.edu
Rebecca Aft, Co-Investigator, aftr@wustl.edu
Kian Lim, Co-Investigator, kian-huat.lim@wustl.edu
Katherine Fuh, Co-Investigator, kfuh@wustl.edu
Feng Chen, Co-Investigator, fchen@wustl.edu
Ryan Fields, Investigator, rcfields@wustl.edu
Brian VanTine, Co-Investigator, bvantine@wustl.edu
John DiPersio, Co-Investigator, jdipersi@wustl.edu
Jinqin Luo, Investigator, jingqinluo@wustl.edu

Wistar/MDAnderson Wistar

PIs: Drs. Meenhard Herlyn and Mike Davis

Over500 PDX representing all clinical, biological, and genetic groups of melanomas are being used to understand the mechanisms of resistance to standard therapies as well as develop new strategies for overcoming it.

Meenhard Herlyn, PI
DVM, DSc, Professor, Director, Melanoma Research Center,
Wistar Institute3601 Spruce St. Room 472 A
Philadelphia PA 19104
Tel: 215-898-3950Fax: 215-898-0980
Email: herlynm@wistar.org
Web:https://wistar.org/our-scientists/meenhard-herlyn
Twitter: @herlynlab

Mike Davies, PI
Contact: mdavies@mdanderson.org

Vash Yennu Nanda, Co-Investigator
Contact: vynanda@mdanderson.org

MD Anderson Cancer Center

PIs: Dr. Jack Roth and Funda Meric-Bernstam

Our lab is focused on utilizing our growing collection of advance-disease patient-derived xenografts of many histologies (>200 unique patients to date) to identify novel drug combinations and biomarker-drug pairs that can be moved to clinical testing in the near term.

Funda Meric-Bernstam, MD, Chair
Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics
Medical Director, Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy
Nellie B. Connally Chair in Breast Cancer; Professor, Divisions of Cancer Medicine and Surgery

UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, 1400 Holcombe Blvd. FC8.3044, Houston TX 77030
Email:  fmeric@mdanderson.org
Tel: 713-794-1226
Fax: 713-563-0566

Jack Roth, PI
Contact: jroth@mdanderson.org

Bingliang Fang, Co-Investigator, bfang@mdanderson.org
Scott Kopetz, Investigator, SKopetz@mdanderson.org
John Minna, Co-Investigator, john.minna@utsouthwestern.edu
Jing Wang, Investigator, jingwang@mdanderson.org
Veera Baladandayuthapani, Co-Investigator, Veera@mdanderson.org
Don Gibbons, Investigator, dlgibbon@mdanderson.org
Kurt Evans, Investigator, kwevans@mdanderson.org.
David Menter, Co-Investigator, dmenter@mdanderson.org
Timothy Yap, Co-Investigator, tyap@mdanderson.org
Argun Akcakanat, Co-Investigator, aakcakanat@mdanderson.org
Shannon Westin, Co-Investigator, swestin@mdanderson.org
Vanessa Jensen, Co-Investigator, vbjensen@mdanderson.org
Coya Tapia, Co-Investigator, ctapia1@mdanderson.org

UC Davis

PIs: Chong-Xian Pan, Luis Carvajal-Carmona and Moon Shao-Chuang Chen

Luis Carvajal-Carmona, PI, ljcarvajal@ucdavis.edu

Chong-xian Pan, MD, PhD., PI, chongxian_pan@hms.harvard.edu
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Characterizing Treatment Responses with PDX Models for Lung and Bladder Tumors

Moon S Chen, PI, Contact: mschenjr@ucdavis.edu

Baylor College of Medicine

PIs: Drs. Salma Kaochar
Salma Kaochar, PI, kaochar@bcm.edu