Patient-derived organoids: an emerging platform to de-risk immunotherapy development

Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have had a positive impact on the life expectancy of patients with liquid cancers, whereas solid tumors remain an open challenge for immunotherapeutic development. The lack of clinically predictive biomarkers coupled with the poor translatability from conventional 2D cancer models represent major hurdles for preclinical development. Patient-derived organoids (PDOs) generated from healthy and malignant tissues recapitulate complex characteristics of the original parental tissue, including molecular heterogeneity and morphological and functional traits. Importantly, they preserve tumor-specific antigens that are conventionally lost in standard in vitro models, therefore representing an excellent system to investigate efficacy, target engagement, and mechanism of action, and to stratify a patient population based on tumor molecular features. In this article, the development of PDO and immune cell biobanks relevant for testing immuno-oncology agents, and co-culture assays to evaluate different products, are described. 

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