Today marks the launch of a new resource that will make it easier for researchers around the world to study chordoma and could accelerate efforts to develop new treatments, and ultimately a cure, for this rare and challenging form of bone cancer
The Foundation has partnered with the nonprofit American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), the world’s largest and most reputable cell line repository and the go-to source for cancer cell lines for researchers worldwide, to launch a “chordoma cell line collection” at ATCC, starting with three cell lines.
The importance of cell lines
Cell lines – continuously dividing families of cells derived from human tumors – are critical for understanding cancer and developing new treatments. Scarcity of chordoma cell lines has been a major obstacle for chordoma research: Until 2010, only one valid chordoma cell line had ever been created. Because each individual tumor – and thus each cell line – is slightly different, multiple cell lines must be tested in order to ensure meaningful experimental results. Consequently, until now, many researchers wishing to study chordoma have been hamstrung; some have been deterred from undertaking chordoma research projects altogether.
To address this major challenge, in 2010 the Chordoma Foundation began offering $10,000 prizes to encourage researchers to develop new lines. Ultimately, the Foundation and ATCC aim to have at least 10 different chordoma cell lines covering the many clinical variations of this disease available for researchers.
“The Foundation’s partnership with ATCC is the culmination of years of work, and will help alleviate one of the biggest bottlenecks facing chordoma research,” said Foundation Executive Director Josh Sommer. “These cell lines will now be easily accessible to researchers and drug companies from a trusted source in perpetuity, a development that will open up new avenues for research, give this rare disease more visibility throughout the global cancer research community, and increase the number of researchers who can bring their expertise to bear on chordoma.”
Partnership extends global reach, opportunities
Before partnering with ATCC, the Chordoma Foundation had maintained its small collection of chordoma cell lines on its own. The cell lines were maintained and distributed on behalf of the Foundation by the lab of Dr. Michael Kelley at Duke University Medical Center. Since 2008, the Foundation has distributed cell lines to more than 60 labs around the world, enabling numerous research projects that otherwise would not have been possible.
The ATCC-Chordoma Foundation partnership leverages the strengths of both organizations while making it possible to meet the growing demand for these cell lines and facilitate access by more researchers. The Foundation will continue to encourage scientists to develop new cell lines by publicizing and funding the cell line prizes, and will rigorously examine all new lines to ensure that they are valid models of chordoma. In addition, the Foundation will provide funding to help the nonprofit ATCC offset the cost of distributing the cell lines to researchers. The Virginia-based ATCC will store, manage, grow, and distribute the lines all over the world, drawing on the organization’s vast experience handling cell lines for other cancers, including global shipping, strict quality control measures, and an existing framework for customer support.
A model for other rare cancers
The Chordoma Foundation’s innovative approach to the development of cell lines has drawn interest from other rare cancer foundations, and even the media (see Wall Street Journal coverage here). “The process the Foundation has established to incentivize development of cell lines, validate them, and get them to ATCC is replicable for any rare cancer,” Sommer noted. Several other foundations are now working to set up their own cell line collections and have sought advice from the Chordoma Foundation.
The first three chordoma cell lines available through ATCC are U-CH1 and U-CH2 (creators: Silke Bruederlein and Peter Moeller at the University of Ulm) and MUG-Chor1 (Beate Rinner at the Medical University of Graz). Special thanks to Michael and Cheryl Torrey and Malik and Jamellah Ellis who sponsored the prizes the Foundation awarded to these researchers.
To obtain chordoma cell lines visit the collection website or contact the Chordoma Foundation