Oncology Models Forum (OMF)

Image of the Oncology Models Forum — Oncology Models Forum

The Oncology Models Forum (OMF) was launched by the NCI in 2014 to fund research into advancing standard practices for modeling human cancers in mice and to facilitate collaborations, data sharing, and harmonization of mouse models. In 2016, the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) was expanded to all mammalian model systems (PAR-16-059) and has been re-issued in 2017 (PAR-17-245), 2020 (PAR-20-131), and 2023 (PAR-23-281).

Unlike many hypothesis-driven and mechanistic R01 projects, this program is devoted to ensuring mammalian models used for translational research questions are appropriate for those purposes and the models provide reliable and informative data for patient benefit. The OMF now includes a range of models including canine, porcine, organoid, and cell line models, in addition to many diverse mouse model systems.

OMF News and Highlights

Research Advances from the OMF

OMF Scientist Highlights: Drs. Wen Xue, Vishnu Hosur, and Ming Chen

Dr. Wen Xue is an Associate Professor at the UMass Chan Medical School who is generating and characterizing animal models of cancer using CRISPR-based genome editing techniques.

His team developed dual prime editing-based precise deletion and repair. This technique enables large genomic deletion coupled with insertion. The study demonstrates the potential applications of prime editing to model complex genomic alterations in cancer.

The Xue laboratory also applies in vivo delivery of CRISPR in somatic organs to rapidly create new mouse models of cancer, including aggressive liver and lung cancer.

Dr. Vishnu Hosur is a Research Scientist at the Jackson Laboratory who utilizes advanced genetic engineering technology, including CRISPR/Cas9 and Bxb1 recombinases, to study complex cancer biology using mouse models.

His team generated new mouse models with human neutrophils—or humanized mice—to study the role of neutrophils in cancer.

The Hosur lab also investigates the ways that mice respond to different methods of gene disruption, which have significant implications for the application of genome editing in both basic research and clinical practice.

Dr. Ming Chen is an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine whose laboratory developed a series of genetically engineered mouse models that mimic the development of human prostate cancer, ranging from localized to metastatic prostate cancer.

His team used these models to dissect disease mechanisms and perform preclinical studies to discover and validate therapeutic targets.

The Chen laboratory is also creating conditional mouse alleles that enable the development of new cancer models that recapitulate human cancers associated with large chromosomal deletions, including prostate cancer.

OMF Funding Opportunity

PAR-23-281 : Research Projects to Enhance Applicability of Mammalian Models for Translational Research (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

OMF Meetings

May 16, 2024
Oncology Models Forum Spring Seminar (Virtual)

December 5-6, 2023
Oncology Models Forum Annual Meeting

July 23, 2023
Oncology Models Forum Summer Seminar

March 15-16, 2022
Oncology Models Forum Annual Meeting

December 9, 2021
Oncology Models Forum Fall Seminar

July 27, 2021
Oncology Models Forum Summer Seminar

March 30-31, 2021
Oncology Models Forum Annual Meeting (Virtual)

January 30, 2020
NCI Oncology Models Forum Meeting (NCI Shady Grove)

November 8, 2018
NCI Oncology Models Forum Meeting (University of California, San Francisco)

September 18-19, 2017
Immune Interventions in Oncology: A Think Tank on Modeling Opportunities using Mice and Human Specimens (NCI Shady Grove)

Human Cancer Models Initiative (HCMI) Catalog – Resource of patient-derived next-generation cancer models developed by HCMI, which is an international collaboration between NCI, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and Hubrecht Organoid Technology
NCI Mouse Repository – NCI-funded resource for mouse cancer models and associated strains
Oncology Model Fidelity Score – Uses the Hallmarks of Cancer to compare cancer animal models to human cancer
Single R – Analyzes cellular heterogeneity from single-cell RNA sequencing data
Xcell – Analyzes cellular heterogeneity from bulk gene expression data

Contacts for the OMF

For additional information about the OMF, please contact Dr. Joanna Watson or Dr. Christine Nadeau.

Funded Projects

Institution	Principal Investigator(s)	Project Title
University of California, San Francisco	Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff	Definition of Immune Infiltrate Phenotype and DNA Damage Response Deficits Across Diverse Murine Mammary Carcinomas
Broad Institute, Inc.	Jesse Samuel Boehm	Rapid ex vivo biosensor cultures to assess dependencies in gastroesophageal cancer
Emory University	Nicholas M. Boulis, Peter Canoll	Lentiviral-Induced Swine Model of Spinal Cord Glioma
Rockefeller University	Stylianos Bournazos	Novel Transgenic Mouse Models Addressing Outstanding Translational Barriers in Antibody-Based Therapeutics
Northwestern University	Daniel J. Brat	Modeling the Glioblastoma Microenvironment to Uncover Progression Mechanisms and Therapeutic Targets
University of Nebraska Medical Center	Mark A. Carlson	Development and Application of a Porcine Model of Pancreatic Cancer
UT Southwestern Medical Center	Diego H. Castrillon	Polymerase-Mediated Ultramutagenesis and Carcinogenesis in Mice
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Alain Charest, Vassiliki A. Boussiotis, Roel GW	Understanding the cellular and functional changes in the immune tumor microenvironment of glioblastoma during progression and treatments
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center	Alain Charest, Vassiliki A. Boussiotis	Advancing Treatment Outcomes in Malignant Glioma by Integrating Immunotherapy and Standard of Care Using Genetically Engineered Mice that Recapitulate Molecular Feature of Human Glioma
Duke University	Ming Chen	Engineering Large Chromosomal Deletions in Mice to Advance Precision Oncology
Mayo Clinic Arizona	Marta Chesi	Credentialing a Genetically Engineered Clinically-Relevant Mouse Model of Multiple Myeloma
Mayo Clinic Arizona	Marta Chesi, Peter Leif Bergsagel	Preclinical optimization of BCMA directed T cell therapy
University of Michigan	Kathleen R. Cho	Modeling Factors Associated with Risk of High-Grade Serous Carcinoma in Mice
Weill Medical College of Cornell University	Lukas Edward Dow	In Vivo Base Editing for Precision Oncology Models
University of Colorado Denver	Patricia Ernst, Terry Fry	Escape from CAR T surveillance through lineage plasticity
Washington University	Ryan C. Fields, Richard A. Flavell	Advancing Precision Oncology in a Humanized, Fully Autologous Mouse Model
Brigham and Women's Hospital	Christopher French, Derin Keskin, Geoffrey Shapiro	Genetically engineered mouse model to improve therapy of NUT carcinoma
MD Anderson Cancer Center	Giannicola Genovese	Investigation of the Role of Epithelial-Mesenchymal Plasticity in Renal Cell Carcinoma
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital	Leighton H. Grimes, Stephanie Halene	Modeling Myelodysplasia
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center	Jlenia Guarnerio	Comparative Modeling of Sarcoma Microenvironments for the Discovery of Biomarkers and Tumor Vulnerabilities
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute	Kevin Haigis	Mouse Models of Kras-Mutant Colorectal Cancer
University of California Los Angeles	Anthony Heaney	Development of 3-dimensional human pituitary corticotroph tumor cultures as a preclinical model for drug discovery
Jackson Laboratory	Vishnu Hosur	Site-specific Integration of Large (10-100 kb) DNA Constructs into the Mouse Genome and Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells Using the Cas9-Bxb1 Integrase Toolbox
Johns Hopkins University	Chien-Fu Hung, Richard Bruce Roden	Mouse Modeling of HPV Infection
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Tyler E. Jacks	Development of Novel Metastatic Mouse Models that Recapitulate the Major Immune Contexts of Human Colon Cancer
Yale University	Nikhil Joshi	Developing Translationally-Relevant Genetically Engineered Mouse Models of Lung Adenocarcinoma for Investigations in Cancer Immunology
Weill Medical College of Cornell Univ	Tan A Ince	Culture of tumor versus normal cells
Wayne State University	Jennifer Jacob, Benjamin Kidder	Defining Cancer Intervention Targets by Functional Genomics Analysis of Outbred F1 Mice
University of California, San Diego	Michael Karin	A new mouse model for studying the pathogenesis and immunobiology of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and improving its immunotherapy
University of California, San Diego	Michael Karin	Highly Penetrant and Immunogenic Mouse Models of Non-Viral HCC that are Suitable for Evaluation of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Univ of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester	Elinor Karlsson	Transforming family dogs into a powerful and accessible model for human cancer
Univ of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester	Elinor Karlsson, Cheryl A London	Leveraging canine spontaneous cancer to optimize the power of blood biopsy
University of Wisconsin-Madison	Randall Kimple	Improving the translational value of head and neck
University of Texas MD Anderson	Frederick F Lang	A Novel Adenoviral-Permissive, Immunocompetent Hamster Model to Evaluate Oncolytic Adenoviral Therapy for Glioblastoma
Uppsala University	Kerstin Lindblad-Toh	Enhancing the Dog as a Model for Human Cancers: From Genome Sequence Towards Clinical Trials
Baylor College of Medicine	Yi Li, Xiang Zhang	Next Generation Rat Models of ER+ Breast Cancer
Baylor College of Medicine	Yong Li	Optimizing Syngeneic Mouse Models to Target Mutant p53
Georgetown University	Xuefeng Liu	Conditionally Reprogrammed Cell Model for Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC)
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	Scott W. Lowe	Rapid and Flexible Precision Oncology Mouse Models of Epithelial Malignancies
Washington University	Jeffrey Magee, Jeffery KLCO	Cross-species development and credentialing of pediatric AML models
University of Alabama at Birmingham	Christopher Ryan Miller, Frank Furnari, Donald O'Rourke	Credentialing next-generation human glioma models for precision therapeutics
MD Anderson Cancer Center	Anirban Maitra	Translational Applications in an Animal Model of Pancreatic Cystic Neoplasm and Cancer
University of California Los Angeles	David A. Nathanson, Thomas G. Graeber	Mammalian Models for Integrated Metabolic and Molecular Profiling of Malignant Glioma
Weill Medical College of Cornell University	David Nowak	Novel Mouse Models for Quantitative Understanding of Baseline and Therapy-Driven Evolution of Prostate Cancer Metastasis
University of Pittsburgh	Steffi Oesterreich, Andrian V. Lee	Credentialing Models of Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer for Translational Research
H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center	Eric Padron	Developing and Credentialing Patient-Derived Xenograft Models to Advance Therapeutic Approaches for Chronic Myelomonocytic Leukemia
University of California at Davis	Robert B Rebhun	Clinical, molecular, and immune characterization of naturally occurring osteosarcoma in dogs
University of California, San Francisco	Susanna Rosi, Nalin Gupta	Myeloid Cells and Radiation-Induced Memory Deficits in Rodent Glioma Model: Sex and Age Effects
Roswell Park Cancer Institute	Mukund Seshadri	Radiogenomic Credentialing of Head and Neck Cancer Models
Baylor College of Medicine	Lanlan Shen	Epigenetically Engineered Mouse Model for Lung Cancer Therapy
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center	Jesse Joshua Smith	Expansion of Tumoroid Models for Precise Treatment of the Rectal Cancer Patient
Duke University	Joshua Clair Snyder	Visualizing Tumor Heterogeneity in an Immune Intact and Autochthonous Mouse Model of Breast Cancer
University of California, San Francisco	Eric Alejandro Sweet-Cordero, David H. Haussler	Development of Advanced Preclinical Models for Pediatric Solid Tumors
University Of Alabama at Birmingham	Deeann Wallis-Schultz, Robert Kesterson	Loss of NF1 drives hormone dependent mammary carcinogenesis in a rat model with intact immune system
Johns Hopkins University	Tzyy-Choou Wu	Development of Novel Spontaneous HPV Cervicovaginal Carcinoma Models for Cancer Immunotherapy
University of Pennsylvania	Xiaowei Xu, Meenhard Herlyn	Gamma delta T cell based melanoma therapies
University of Massachusetts Medical School of Worcester	Wen Xue	In vivo prime editing for precision cancer mouse models
Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine	Jianjun Zhao	New mouse model of cisplatin-induced AKI and development of prevention therapy
University of Georgia	Shaying Zhao, William Hildebrand	Canine MHC-I genotyping and tumor specific neoantigen determination
UT Southwestern Medical Center	Hao Zhu	Improving Hepatocellular Carcinoma Mouse Modeling by Understanding the Malignant Potential and Biology of Liver Cell Subpopulations