"By collaborating with both the Burnham and the Prostate Cancer Foundation, we anticipate the outcomes and discoveries from this study to significantly accelerate both our understanding of cell-cell interactions and as a result, the pace at which drugs are made available to patients," said Franklin C. Salisbury, Jr., President of the National Foundation for Cancer Research. "We know that our organizations' joint work on these projects is a model for future research initiatives and collaborations."
"We are delighted to partner with the NFCR and Burnham to help give investigators the ability to establish standards for a 3-dimensional culture, which we believe will have a significant effect on how pre-clinical evaluation of anti-cancer drugs can be tested in the future," said Leslie Michelson, CEO, The Prostate Cancer Foundation. "We will follow their progress closely and look forward to sharing their results."
Burnham investigators have developed a unique technique for culturing cancer cells into clusters, called spheroids, which links cellular biochemistry with tumor physiology. The 3-dimensional culturing of cancer cells is a significant advancement over conventional tissue culture methods in which cells are grown in two-dimension, as a flattened layer on plastic. The new method will expedite the drug discovery process, as thousands of compounds can be tested in three-dimensional cell culture to determine prime drug candidates before testin
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Contact: Nancy Beddingfield
nbeddingfield@burnham.org
858-646-3146
Burnham Institute
25-Aug-2005