Establishment of a Biological Collection to Develop Translational Preclinical Models for the Study of Tumors and Diseases of the Gastrointestinal Tract (GIMod)

The causes underlying the development of chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and digestive cancers remain poorly understood. They involve both genetic susceptibilities and multiple environmental factors.

Research and the development of new therapeutic strategies are essential to provide patients with novel treatment opportunities. A deep understanding of the tumor ecosystem at the molecular level, as well as the interactions between different cell types, is crucial to identify and validate new therapeutic targets.

Since animal cancer models have shown their limitations in translating results to humans, studies models are often based on autologous patient tissues and sera. These innovative models make it possible to:

• model tumors ex vivo,
• perform screenings of new candidate molecules,
• or test tumor response to existing therapies in the context of personalized medicine.

This work has led to numerous publications on advanced digestive cancers, such as those of the liver or the bile acid pathway To create ex vivo models and reconstruct the tumor in vitro, experiments require treating tumor cells with blood from the same patient (autologous), collected simultaneously with the tumor resection. The tumor tissues used in culture are obtained from residual material of anatomopathological analyses performed as part of clinical care.