REWARD: $5,000 Prize For New Chordoma Cell Lines 
Overview
Cell lines are live tumor cells grown perpetually in a
laboratory that are used to model the behavior of human tumors. Currently
access to valid chordoma cell lines is a major obstacle for chordoma research
and treatment development.
To overcome this barrier the Chordoma Foundation
seeks to create a panel of at least ten well-characterized and validated chordoma
cell lines, each of which faithfully represents the biology of the tumor from
which it was derived.
- The panel will include cell lines representing the diverse
clinical spectrum of the disease, including chordomas of the skull-base and
spine from primary, recurrent, and metastatic tumors in adults and pediatrics.
- Cell
lines in the panel will be distributed by the Chordoma Foundation to research
labs across world.
- Data generated on each cell line will be aggregated in a
centralized database, allowing results from the same cell line in multiple labs
to be directly compared.
- The continually-expanding set of
knowledge about the cell line’s biology will greatly enhance the
scientific value of each cell line.
By enabling all researchers to study
the same set of high-quality cell lines, the Chordoma Foundation Cell Line
Panel will make the entire field of chordoma research more efficient and
effective, and will accelerate the pace of discovery.
The Chordoma Foundation welcomes contributions of new cell
lines to the panel, and will award a $5,000 prize to any researcher who submits
a valid chordoma cell line selected for inclusion in the panel. To be included
in the panel a cell line must be submitted to an independent laboratory for
characterization and validation, and must be reviewed by a panel of experts.
Rationale
Cell lines are a critically important tool for modern cancer
research because they allow scientists to manipulate live cancer cells and
observe the biological processes that cause them to grow. Cell lines can also
be used to measure a tumor’s response to thousands of different drugs before
ever testing these drugs in humans. Because all chordomas are slightly
different, multiple different cell lines originating from different tumors are
needed in order to confirm and generalize research results to some or all
chordoma patients.
Before any experiments or drug testing can be performed,
cell lines must be extensively studied and characterized to ensure that they
are a realistic model of actual chordoma tumors. To be a useful model, a cell
line must maintain the behavior and underlying biology of the tumor from which
it was derived. However, cell lines frequently deviate, or drift, from their
initial biology, and can become contaminated with microorganisms, non-cancerous
cells, another cell line, or even cells from another species (frequently mouse).
When drift or contamination occurs the cell line is no longer useful as a
research tool. A large proportion of cell lines (~20% on average, perhaps up to
80% for chordoma) are not valid models of the disease they are meant to represent.
Studying invalid cell lines results in invalid data, and is a waste of time and
money. By collecting, validating, and distributing high-quality, cell lines,
the Chordoma Foundation can help ensure that published data is not
contaminated, and that research dollars are spent well.
Benefits of Centralized Cell Line Repository
- Researchers can be confident that the cell lines they are
studying are in fact chordoma
- Researchers only have to look in one place for chordoma cell
lines thereby saving the time, effort, and money of setting up material
transfer agreements with multiple different labs
- Data from multiple different laboratories can be aggregated
and compared per cell line, adding utility to the cell lines as a research tool
Creating New Cell Lines
The Chordoma Foundation strongly encourages researchers to
attempt to create new chordoma cell lines. We have released a request for
grant applications for the Development and Characterization of Chordoma Model
Systems, which provide seed funding for researchers to create and characterize
cell lines (and/or animal models). Grant recipients are expected to submit
chordoma cell lines that they develop to the Chordoma Foundation for validation
and inclusion in the Chordoma Foundation Cell Line Panel, and grant the
Foundation unrestricted rights to distribute these cell lines for research
purposes.
Inclusion Process
Any investigator who has created an immortalized cell line derived
from a chordoma tumor may submit the cell line for validation and inclusion in
the panel. To achieve standardization among the entire cell line panel, all
validation experiments will be carried out at Duke University
in the lab of Dr. Michael Kelley. To submit a cell line follow the instructions contained in these documents:
Prize Announcement for New Chordoma Cell Lines
Letter of Intent to Submit Cell Lines for Inclusion in Chordoma Foundation Cell Line Panel
Prize
The Chordoma Foundation will award $5,000
unrestricted prizes to the laboratory of any investigator who submits a cell
line that is selected for inclusion in the Chordoma Foundation Cell Line Panel.
This award is meant to encourage novel and creative approaches to establishing chordoma
cell lines. It is also intended to promote biological diversity and avoid
homogeneity among the set of cell lines in the panel. ALL investigators,
including recipients of Chordoma Foundation research grants, are eligible to
receive up to five (5) $5,000 awards.
Distribution
Cell lines selected for inclusion in the Chordoma Foundation
cell line panel will be stored and maintained in the lab of Dr. Michael Kelley
at Duke University.
Requests for cell lines
should be made directly to the Chordoma Foundation. After a material transfer
agreement is signed between the Chordoma Foundation and the recipient
scientist, the Chordoma Foundation will ship aliquots of cell lines to the
recipient scientist.
Frequently Asked Questions
Cell lines are live tumor cells that grow and multiply
indefinitely in a laboratory and are used to model the behavior of human
tumors. Most cell lines are grown as a monolayer - a microscopic one-cell-thick
sheet of cells – attached to plastic flasks. Some cancer cells do not stick to
the flask and instead grow as microscopic floating clusters of cells suspended
in growth media – a precise solution of nutrients and food that supports cell
growth. Still other cell lines grow in specialized three-dimensional gels that
mimic bodily tissue.
Cell lines used for a number of purposes. Some uses include
the following:
-
screening drugs or new compounds to determine their ability
to kill cancer cells
- measuring the expression of drug targets by the cancer
cells
- determining the activation status of signaling pathways
important for cell growth and survival
- observing the effect of turning a particular gene or pathway
on or off
- testing various immune therapy approaches for killing cancer
cells
- observing the effect various types of radiation have on cancer
cells
Cell lines give scientists the opportunity to study live
cancer cells, and to observe how these cells react to certain stimulation. By
observing the behavior of live cells scientists can learn a great deal about
their biology, and can test strategies for selectively killing these cells. If
studying tumor tissue is like looking at a picture, studying a cell line is
like watching a movie – it provides many times more information about the
tumor.
Cell lines are especially important in the drug development process because data generated using cell lines is often used to justify new clinical trials, and the eventual approval of new drugs.
There are a number of reasons why growing chordoma cell
lines is difficult. Some reasons include the following:
- establishing a cell line requires fresh tissue to be quickly transported from the operating room to a laboratory in the midst of surgery, and takes significant effort and careful planning between surgeons, pathologists, and laboratory researchers
- it takes a year or more of meticulous work to establish a cell line, however given scarce funding for chordoma research most laboratories cannot devote the personnel or resources to this endeavor
- chordoma cells are slow growing
- tumors contain a mixture of many different cell types, and isolating
the malignant cell population is not straight forward
- culturing tumor cells in a laboratory drastically alters the
environment in which they live – this alone kills many of the tumor cells
- some cell types simply will not grow in a tissue culture
environment
- cell cultures are often overgrown with connective tissue
cells called fibroblasts
- cell cultures can become contaminated with bacteria,
fungus, or mycoplasma