Democratising research tools via a non-profit platform for cancer research

It's officially been a year since CancerTools.org launched back in April 2022! In light of our anniversary, it's befitting to reflect on the momentum of this past year and the milestones it has brought with it.  

The reagents you use in your daily experiments are critical to pave the way for future discoveries and help to advance our understanding of this intricate disease. With frequent advancements in the field and science continuing to break boundaries, tools and technologies are quickly becoming nuance and innovative. Those in the oncology space are united through an alignment of similar missions.  Built by and for cancer researchers, CancerTools.org is grounded in this underlying union. Empowered by a greater mission to accelerate cancer research, CancerTools.org is the first-of-its-kind, non-profit, cancer-focused biorepository, featuring a portfolio of tangible research materials including antibodies, cell lines, organoids, cell culture media, mouse models, small molecules, and other latest state-of-the-art technologies. Intended to both serve and inspire the community, CancerTools.org “is more than just physical materials, it’s about stimulating dialogue and championing collaborations with your peers” – Robert Bondaryk, Global Head of CancerTools.org.  

Since launching in April last year, we have fulfilled certain achievements that facilitate this mission for the research community. Partnering with societies and academic institutes alike, plays an integral role in democratising research tools globally and is central to what we do here at CancerTools.org. 

The start of the year saw an exciting partnership with the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR) - a professional membership organisation made up of over 10,000 cancer researchers. Our collaboration with the EACR invited their scientific community to contribute tools developed in their laboratories, together with accessing our portfolio for their various cancer research needs.

Continuing our first year with collaboration and new technologies at the forefront was important, and our partnership with Fukushima Medical University (FMU) in Japan did just that. FMU, with the support of their technology transfer partner, Summit Pharmaceuticals International, generously contributed a realm of diverse and unique cancer patient-derived organoids (F-PDOs) and human gene-overexpressing cell lines. "This is an exciting opportunity for FMU to demonstrate to their scientists how their research efforts can expand beyond the confines of their own lab, helping to accelerate cancer research and the associated discoveries worldwide" - Motoki Takagi, FMU.  Cancer scientists globally will be able to use these organoids in various application areas including, disease modeling, anti-cancer agents' discovery and development, immuno-oncology assays, compounds safety, and toxicity testing. 

Our unique antibody portfolio constitutes one of our most established offerings. Fulfilling requests for a highly sought-after antibody can be demanding in terms of time, reagents, and financial resources. An instance of an innovative antibody contributed to CancerTool.org is the Anti-Omomyc- an antibody to study Myc biology, invented by Prof. Laura Soucek, co-Director at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology. It is now available to the wider scientific community through CancerTools.org, accelerating research on Myc worldwide. By internalising the production and distribution of the anti-Omomyc antibody in our labs, we can manage demand promptly. These very collaborations have allowed us to add a significant number of tangible research tools to the portfolio this year! We can’t wait to continue to expand our portfolio with advanced tools and technologies that grow in tandem with ground-breaking science.   

We made a global mark in more than one way this year. From New Orleans Louisiana to Florence Italy, Austin Texas and Bilbao Spain, we have had the pleasure of meeting and sharing CancerTools.org with scientists at research conferences worldwide. These meetings are not only a forum to engage with you but present themselves as an avenue to continue to stay updated with nuance learnings and advanced happenings in the field, ensuring we maintain a portfolio that is well aligned with the current demands of science. We can’t wait to keep meeting more of you this year at future conferences - check out where we will be this year here.  

Internally at CancerTools.org, we have expanded our team,  helping to diversify our skillsets when it comes to the understanding of science and what it takes to bring those ground-breaking tools and technologies in front of the wider scientific community. This ensures we can support our mission as best we can, and in conjunction with upcoming partnerships on the horizon,  leaves us looking forward to a fruitful 2023. 

“CancerTools.org will continue to build an end-user-centric program that will allow scientists to deposit the advanced tools and technologies they have been working on in an undemanding way. This will strengthen our position across verticals to further power cancer research by our fellow scientists” -  Pawanbir Singh, Head of Marketing at CancerTools.org.

 We look forward to continue working with the brightest minds of the scientific community and supporting ongoing cancer research globally.