Moffitt Advances Patient Avatar Technologies Through $15 Million Federal Research Initiative
Moffitt Cancer Center is advancing patient avatar technologies through a $15 million federally funded research initiative in collaboration with the Murtha Cancer Center Research Program at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. The research could provide new ways to study cancer, predict treatment response and accelerate the development of personalized therapies.
The research initiative will focus on the development and use of patient avatars, which are laboratory models that replicate key characteristics of an individual patient’s disease and can be used to study how that disease behaves and responds to different treatments. These avatars include microtumors and microtissues, which are designed to re-create important characteristics of a patient’s cancer. By creating models that more closely reflect the biology of an individual patient’s cancer, researchers hope to better understand how tumors behave and respond to different treatments.
The program will also explore applications of these technologies for pandemic preparedness, expanding their potential beyond cancer research.
“This is an incredible opportunity to bring together expertise in cancer research, bioengineering and military medicine to address important challenges in cancer care,” said Greg Sawyer, Ph.D., chair of Moffitt’s Bioengineering Department. “Our goal is to build technologies that allow us to understand an individual patient’s disease in ways that haven’t previously been possible and ultimately use that information to improve care.”
Approximately $8.4 million is expected to support work conducted by Moffitt researchers as part of the broader initiative. The funding can be used over two years, providing researchers with an opportunity to develop and advance several complementary projects.
The research initiative grew from discussions among Moffitt researchers, the Murtha Cancer Center Research Program and federal research partners focused on identifying areas where emerging bioengineering technologies could address important needs in cancer research and military medicine.
“Microtumor and microtissue technologies give us an exciting new way to study cancer in an environment that more closely reflects what happens in the human body. For us, the potential is particularly compelling because it could help us better understand how cancers behave, identify promising treatments more efficiently, and move discoveries from the laboratory toward our patients more quickly. For military medicine, where maintaining the health and readiness of our service members is paramount, technologies that accelerate precision cancer research could ultimately make a meaningful difference in how we prevent, detect and treat cancer,” said Craig Shriver, M.D., director, Murtha Cancer Center and Murtha Cancer Center Research Program.
The Moffitt team plans to pursue five projects aligned with those priorities. The projects will focus on developing precision cancer models that more closely replicate an individual patient's disease; studying immunotherapy and how tumors respond to treatment; advancing cryopreservation techniques and building tumor libraries for future research; mapping the metabolic activity of cancer to better understand how tumors grow and survive; and developing digital twins, which are virtual representations of tumors that researchers can use to model disease behavior and treatment response.
Together, the projects are designed to provide researchers with new ways to study the complexity of cancer while creating tools that could ultimately help personalize treatment for individual patients.
“This investment reflects the kind of multidisciplinary, collaborative research that is essential to accelerating progress against cancer,” said John Cleveland, Ph.D., center director and chief scientific officer at Moffitt. “By bringing together Moffitt’s strengths in cancer biology, engineering and patient care with the expertise of our partners, we have an opportunity to develop innovative technologies that move discoveries from the laboratory toward meaningful applications for patients.”
Patient avatars are part of a growing effort to make cancer research more representative of what happens inside an individual patient. Traditional laboratory models can provide important information about cancer biology, but they cannot always capture the complexity and variability of a patient’s tumor. Microtumors and microtissues offer researchers another way to re-create aspects of that environment in the laboratory and test how cancer responds to potential treatments.
“The opportunity is to create a bridge between what we learn in the laboratory and what is happening in the patient,” Sawyer said. “If we can build models that more accurately represent a patient’s cancer, we have the potential to learn faster, evaluate therapies more effectively and ultimately make more informed treatment decisions.”
The initiative also represents a significant expansion of Moffitt’s work with the Murtha Cancer Center Research Program and federal research partners.
“Projects like this require years of collaboration, meetings, presentations and persistence,” Sawyer said. “This funding gives us an opportunity to turn those efforts into technologies that could make a meaningful difference for patients.”
About Moffitt Cancer Center
Moffitt is dedicated to one lifesaving mission: to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer. The Tampa-based facility is one of only 58 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, a distinction that recognizes Moffitt’s scientific excellence, multidisciplinary research, and robust training and education. Moffitt’s expert nursing staff is recognized by the American Nurses Credentialing Center with Magnet status, its highest distinction. For more information, call 1-888-MOFFITT, visit MOFFITT.org, and follow the momentum on Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.
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