Living tumor models from diverse patients to improve treatments for advanced cancers
United for Health Equity - Living PDX Program (U4HELPP)
This program creates living tumor models from people with advanced cancers—especially from underrepresented and Black patients—to help discover better and more equitable treatments.
Quick facts
| Grant type | NIH-funded research |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Virginia Commonwealth University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Richmond, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11128346 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
If you have advanced breast, pancreatic, colon, liver, lung, or peritoneal cancer and donate tissue during surgery, the program will grow your tumor as a patient-derived xenograft (PDX). The U4HELPP PDX Core propagates, cryopreserves, and shares these tumor models with researchers, while a bioinformatics core analyzes their genomes and ancestral profiles. Two research projects will use the models to study pancreatic cancer proteomics and basal-like breast cancer metastasis to identify pathways and potential drug combinations. The program aims to build over 500 PDX models with more than 60% coming from underrepresented populations served by the safety-net clinical system.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: Ideal participants are people undergoing surgery for advanced breast, pancreatic, colon, liver, lung, or other peritoneal cancers who can donate tumor tissue for model creation.
Not a fit: Patients without surgical tumor tissue available, those with early-stage cancers not requiring tumor removal, or those seeking immediate personal treatment changes are unlikely to receive direct benefit from participation.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this resource could reveal ancestry-linked biology and drug responses that lead to treatments that work better for Black and other underrepresented patients.
How similar studies have performed: Patient-derived xenografts and proteogenomic analyses have previously helped predict drug responses, but assembling a very large, ancestry-diverse PDX collection at this scale is relatively novel.
Where this research is happening
Richmond, United States
- Virginia Commonwealth University — Richmond, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Trevino, Jose G. — Virginia Commonwealth University
- Study coordinator: Trevino, Jose G.
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.