Mouse models in Sarcoma
Dr. David Loeb: So when we're doing research into understanding a particular tumor type or the biology of a particiular tumor type, different systems, cell culture animal models and ultimately patients, have different strengths and different limitations in terms of what you can study. And so typically we'll start work with tissue culture models, because although they are more removed from the actual tumor in a patient than anything else, there are fewer limitations in terms of what you can do, meaning testing RNA, DNA and protein and testing different drugs or chemicals to see how they modifty the biology of the cells.
But there are major lmitations to cell culture, because these are cells in isolation from their environment, and they're growing stuck to a piece of plastic which is clearly different from cells growing in a three dimensional space inside a living body. So the advantage of mouse models over cell culture is that you can more closely recapitulate what a tumor is like inside a patient - in the sense that tumors growing in a mouse are growing in three dimensional space instead of two dimensions stuck on plastic, and they have to interact with the mouse's body in terms of blood vessel ingrowth and such. But you can treat mice in waas that you can't treat humans, and so the progression from a two dimensional space where you have limitless ability to a mouse where you have a more accurate representation to a human is the normal progression that we go (through).