# University of Texas PDX Development and Trial Center

> **NIH NIH U54** · UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR · 2021 · $1,259,703

## Abstract

SUMMARY
Our overarching goal for the University Texas PDX Development and Trial Center (UTPDTC) is to optimize
personalized biomarker-based cancer therapy and identify effective targeted drugs based on the molecular
characteristics of each tumor. Our short-term goals are to establish a biobank of clinically, and molecularly-
annotated PDXs and to use PDXs as a platform for preclinical drug development and biomarker discovery. The
primary goal for UTPDTC investigators will be to develop PDX trial strategies for preclinical testing of single
agents and drug combinations. These models will allow the determination of the optimal treatments (single drugs
or combinations) that should be tested in clinical trials in increasingly individualized, molecularly defined subsets
of tumors. In this application we propose projects to prioritize the clinical testing of many targeted agents focused
on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal cancer (CRC), pancreatic cancer (PDAC), and triple negative
breast cancer (TNBC) tumor subtypes, as well as patients with selected genomic alterations across other
histologies. Over the past 9 years, both University of Texas MD Anderson (UTMDACC) and The University of
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) have established institution-wide efforts to generate
novel PDX models and perform preclinical testing. Cumulatively the two institutions have hundreds of PDX
models of different tumor types, including clinically-annotated models in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC,
n=190 with 150 at UTMDACC and 40 at UTSW), colorectal cancer (CRC, n=127 models) pancreatic
adenocarcinoma (PDAC, n=145 models), and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC, n=44 models); four diseases
where there is an urgent need for novel therapeutics. We have characterized many tumor subtypes in our existing
PDXs and plan to characterize many more with the ultimate goal of developing drug combinations in defined
tumor subsets in a context that can lead to clinical trials which will validate the experimental results. We plan to
focus on NCI-IND agents that are primarily used by the Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network. The
availability of hundreds of PDXs of diverse histologic types and molecular profiles provides a unique opportunity
for synergistic interactions among the UTPDTC investigators, PDXNet, and ETCTN. Each Project will identify
molecular subtypes and then test with drugs targeted to putative pathways. Similar molecular subtype profiles
will be identified across projects and histologic classifications. This provides an opportunity to test the activity of
drugs targeting specific molecular pathways that may be active in several histologically distinct subtypes. Such
pan-histologic activity could greatly accelerate drug development. Our proposed studies focus on targeted
therapeutic agents for treatment of diseases and/or molecular subtypes that have unmet medical needs. The
proposed studies are highly relevant to publi...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10242641
- **Project number:** 5U54CA224065-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TX MD ANDERSON CAN CTR
- **Principal Investigator:** FUNDA MERIC-BERNSTAM
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $1,259,703
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-09-30 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10242641

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10242641, University of Texas PDX Development and Trial Center (5U54CA224065-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10242641. Licensed CC0.

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