ORganoid GeneratioN Study for Cancer

When people get cancer, doctors often try to remove it with surgery or treat it with radiotherapy. For many, this works well. However, some cancers can come back, and if they do, current treatments aren't always as effective. Scientists don't fully understand why some cancers are cured completely and others return, and this makes it harder to develop new treatments.

To bridge this gap in understanding, researchers need to study cancer cells very closely. Taking small pieces of a tumour during surgery and studying them can be tricky because the tissue is quickly 'dead' once removed, limiting what can be learned. A promising solution is to try and keep these cancer cells alive and growing in a lab dish. These lab-grown cancer cells, sometimes called 'organoids' or 'mini-tumours,' behave much like the original cancer and can be studied in more detail. This allows scientists to run many tests to understand how the cancer grows and responds to different medicines.

This study, called ORIGINS, is collecting samples of cancer tissue from patients who are having surgery. The main goal is to see if doctors can successfully grow these 'mini-tumours' from different types of cancer. If they can, it means they'll have much better tools to study various cancers. By understanding your specific cancer better, scientists hope to discover new ways to treat it or improve existing treatments, ultimately leading to more successful outcomes for people living with cancer.