Tumour modelling facilitates the study of tumour growth in the tumour microenvironment (TME). Therapies that affect the tumour microenvironment are critical for advancing the fight against cancer as emerging therapies target the network of signaling pathways essential for tumour growth, Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition and metastasis (eg. Wnt/ß-Catenin pathway). Patient derived tumour models, including melanoma cell lines, are invaluable tools to study normal and malignant cells, tumour formation and drug resistance.

Rockland Immunochemicals Inc. has partnered with the Wistar Research Institute, to produce and validate a diverse panel of low passage melanoma cell lines from freshly excised metastases. More than 100 melanoma cell lines are grouped for BRAF, N-RAS, KIT, PTEN and CDK4 mutations.  These pre-clinical tumour cell lines models can be used to identify the critical target genes and pathways enacted by genomic alterations and lead to more accurately prediction of the effectiveness of novel cancer therapeutics and facilitate cancer research.