The Yilmaz Lab grows miniature organs from patients’ own cells—both cancerous and not—and directly tests their response to chemotherapy.

 For this stomach cancer patient, comparing the sensitivity of their “normal” stomach organoid (seen here) to that of their cancer revealed a specific chemotherapy treatment, effective due to a hereditary genomic alteration in the patient’s cells.

Such a strategy opens up new windows for personalized chemotherapy selection for individuals who harbor hereditary causes of their cancer.