Fighting Cancer: Better Models Make Better Drugs

Jan 23 2013

The Huffington Post

We know that comparing man-to-animal will never be a perfect science. There's always room to improve the chances of a successful transition from bench to bedside. Doing so requires more precise techniques that produce better clinical outcomes. So, how do we improve preclinical animal research such that the tumors being tested in animal models more closely resemble those that will be found in human patients?

At Charles River, our oncology models are the "cancer avatars." Why the name "cancer avatars"? Because of our efforts to maintain the tumors in a state as close as possible to the original tumor taken from a patient, we think of the mice into which samples are implanted as stand-ins for actual patients. They help us to determine which drugs, combinations of agents and timing of doses have the best chance of success in humans, without having to pretest every permutation in clinical trials.

Click here to read more in an article by Beth Hollister, Corporate Vice President, Charles River Laboratories, Discovery Research Services.