Human Cancer Models Initiative releases tumor compendium

The Human Cancer Models Initiative (HCMI), a decade-long NIH-funded international collaboration, has released a comprehensive compendium of 665 patient-derived tumor models representing 25 cancer types from 2,780 donors. The collection includes organoids and neurosphere models that closely match their parental tumors, with high concordance in genetic alterations (97.8%), epigenetic features (95%), and RNA expression (92%). The resource is made available to researchers worldwide in partnership with the ATCC (company) (ATCC), along with associated genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and clinical data. The study, published in Nature, is accompanied by companion papers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Broad Institute, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The compendium includes 522 models with detailed clinical data, 153 rare cancer models, and 71 models from non-European ancestry individuals. This resource aims to accelerate cancer research, enable studies of therapeutic resistance, and advance precision oncology.