# Microfluidic Droplet Organoids to Decipher the Tumor Heterogeneity in CRC of African Ancestry

> **NIH NIH R21** · DUKE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $188,169

## Abstract

Abstract
 Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the US
and the incidence of colorectal cancer in African Americans is higher than the general population. Furthermore,
survival among African American patients with colorectal cancer remains significantly lower than other racial
groups. Therefore, colorectal cancer in African American patients still remains a debilitating disease and there
is an unmet need to further understand the biology and specifically tumor heterogeneity of this disease to develop
new therapeutic approaches for these patients in order to improve treatment and overall prognosis. In our
preliminary work, we have developed a droplet-based microfluidics based technology to generate miniature
droplet organoids (MDO) that can be used to grow single cancer cells to study tumor heterogeneity and drug
resistance. Thus, our overall hypothesis is that MDO is the only method that can be used to systematically
study tumor heterogeneity both functionally and genomically. We now propose to test our hypothesis by 1)
Generating miniature droplet organoids (MDO) from patients of African ancestry with CRC in order to perform
high-throughput drug screens to study tumor heterogeneity and 2) Systematically characterize the epigenomes
of the clonal CRC MDO populations and associate them with tumor growth heterogeneity and resistance to
therapy. In summary, these studies will take important steps toward understanding tumor heterogeneity in order
to develop and validate new and potent therapies in African American colorectal cancer patients that can be
successfully translated into the clinic.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10355977
- **Project number:** 1R21CA267265-01
- **Recipient organization:** DUKE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** SHIAOWEN David HSU
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $188,169
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-03-01 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10355977

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10355977, Microfluidic Droplet Organoids to Decipher the Tumor Heterogeneity in CRC of African Ancestry (1R21CA267265-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10355977. Licensed CC0.

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