Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 24, 2026

Integration of Wet and Dry Bench Processes Optimizes Targeted Next-generation Sequencing of Low-quality and Low-quantity Tumor Biopsies
Published on: April 11, 2016
Advancing functional treatment prediction for precision oncology
Eveline C Smit1, Zofia M Komar2, Hedwig M Blommestein3
1Department of Medical Oncology, Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Personalized cancer treatment requires stratification of patients based on biomarkers. Despite advances in biomarker-guided therapy, biomarkers are not always available or sufficient to predict treatment responses in individual patients. Functional ex vivo cancer models with the potential to assess therapeutic outcomes upfront have been developed but have not been implemented in clinical practice-despite accumulating evidence of their clinical relevance. This review describes how three essential steps in the development of personalized functional prediction tests (analytical validity, clinical validity, and clinical utility) should be combined in a multidisciplinary approach: Integrated Translational Co-design. This approach front-loads clinical utility and validation constraints into early analytical design decisions, so that biological fidelity, clinical implementation, and healthcare costs can be optimized from the start of assay development.
Related Concept Videos
Combination Therapies and Personalized Medicine
The combination of the drug acetazolamide and sulforaphane is a good example of combination therapy to treat cancer. The cells in the interior of a large tumor often die due to the hypoxic and...
Targeted Cancer Therapies
There are several types of targeted therapies against specific...
Targeted Cancer Therapies
There are several types of targeted therapies against specific...
Pharmacogenomics: Identification of New Drug Targets
Treatment Resistent Cancers
Pharmacogenetics of Drug Targets: β₂-Adrenergic Receptors, Apo E, Thymidylate Synthase

