Personalized medicine: In vitro drug testing on primary cancer cells

Many university hospitals house dedicated research groups to screen small, dedicated drug libraries on primary tumor cells derived from patient biopsies to match potential treatments to different cancer types.

In this eBook, Tecan provides examples of such laboratories working in the area of pediatric oncology with a focus on leukemias or brain tumors. They all share a reliance on miniaturization and fast processing times to screen hundreds of compounds on very limited and precious patient material.