{"entity":{"id":"idea-bio1-immune-matched-humanised-mice","kind":"idea","name":"Humanised mice with an immune system matched to the tumour donor","aka":[],"tldr":"Most cancer drugs are tested in mice with no immune system, then given to people who have one. Mice carrying the same patient's immune cells and tumour would be a fairer test.","summary":"Standard PDX models use immunodeficient mice, which cannot evaluate immunotherapy or immune-mediated toxicity. Humanised immune system mice reconstituted with HLA-matched or autologous haematopoietic cells, ideally with human cytokine knock-in backgrounds to support myeloid development, allow tumour and immune system from the same donor. Cost and reproducibility have kept them niche.","asOf":"2026-09-08","links":[{"label":"Bottleneck evidence (Lab models that fail to predict what happens in patients): Wong, Siah & Lo, Estimation of clinical trial success rates (Biostatistics 2019)","url":"https://doi.org/10.1093/biostatistics/kxx069"}],"tags":[],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":["pdx-models","checkpoint-inhibitor"],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":["champions-oncology"],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-preclinical-models","b-immunotherapy-response"],"keyPapers":["paper-wong-biostatistics"],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"hypothesis":"Autologous or HLA-matched humanised models reproduce the individual patient's response and immune-related toxicity to checkpoint blockade better than chance, measured against the patient's actual outcome.","rationale":"Immune context determines the outcome of most modern oncology drugs; syngeneic mouse tumours are immunologically unlike human cancers and have repeatedly over-predicted benefit.","test":"Build 40 paired autologous models from patients starting checkpoint therapy and score concordance between model response and patient outcome, pre-registering the concordance threshold.","maturity":"preclinical-evidence","actor":"research","cost":"medium","horizonYears":5},"route":"/ideas/idea-bio1-immune-matched-humanised-mice/","neighbours":{"technology":[{"id":"checkpoint-inhibitor","kind":"technology","name":"Immune checkpoint inhibitors","route":"/technologies/checkpoint-inhibitor/"},{"id":"pdx-models","kind":"technology","name":"Patient-derived xenografts","route":"/technologies/pdx-models/"}],"company":[{"id":"champions-oncology","kind":"company","name":"Champions Oncology","route":"/companies/champions-oncology/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-preclinical-models","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Lab models that fail to predict what happens in patients","route":"/bottlenecks/b-preclinical-models/"},{"id":"b-immunotherapy-response","kind":"bottleneck","name":"No one can predict who responds to immunotherapy","route":"/bottlenecks/b-immunotherapy-response/"}],"paper":[{"id":"paper-wong-biostatistics","kind":"paper","name":"Estimation of clinical trial success rates and related parameters","route":"/key-papers/paper-wong-biostatistics/"}]}}