Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine
Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine

Patient-derived Ex Vivo Drug Response Assays

Disease-specific, patient-derived models for preclinical testing of anti-cancer therapies.

© Fraunhofer ITEM

PEDRA

By ex vivo testing of drugs directly in patient tissues, PEDRA will ensure accurate predictions of drug efficacy. State-of-the-art readouts for drug safety and efficacy can be assessed for a broad range of anti-cancer treatments.

Because PEDRA preserves the original cellular composition of the organ of interest, it is ideal for testing novel immunomodulatory therapeutic strategies including CPI, ADC and oncolytic viruses. 

How does the PEDRA technology work?

© Fraunhofer ITEM, Created with BioRender.com
Illustration of the PEDRA technology

Our Service – ex vivo functional drug response assessment

© Fraunhofer ITEM
PEDRA: Disease-specific, patient-derived models for preclinical testing of anti-cancer therapies
  • Project-specific GDPR-compliant patient recruitment
    • Access to multiple cancer entities and primary patient material sources (e.g., metastases, malignant effusions, lymph nodes, primary tumor tissues)
    • Specific requirements can be fullfilled (e.g., treatment resistance)
    • Clinical data on progression obtainable
  • Original cellular composition of the autologous tumor microenvironment allows for investigating immuno-oncological questions
  • Efficacy data for various novel therapeutics: small molecule compounds, RNA therapeutics, PPI modulators, CPI, ADC, oncolytic viruses
  • Advanced technologies and validated test systems tailored to your needs (e.g., high-content imaging, multicolor flow cytometry, multiomics)
  • Customized bioinformatic data analysis and evaluation
 

Your benefits

  • Take advantage of our long-standing expertise in preclinical drug testing and clinical study design
  • We recruit the right patients for you: fresh clinical biopsies from a wide range of cancer entities for:
    • Efficacy testing of INDs
    • Clinical biomarker identification & analysis (before and during clinical trials)
    • Target validation
  • We plan fully modular and scalable R&D projects perfectly fitting to your needs
  • Make use of our GDPR-compliant analysis and integration of functional and clinical data by our in-house bioinformatics unit
  • We are eligible for international and national public funding initiatives

What does a typical PEDRA project look like?

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Study design

Collaboration and communication directly from the start ensure an approach tailored to your needs. With an experienced project manager by your side, you receive timely updates and clear communication throughout the project.

Our experts guide you through the selection of cancer types, readouts and study size. 

Study initiation

We perform all regulatory steps to ensure GDPR-compliant patient recruitment while simultaneously confirming laboratory readiness for your customized workflow of choice.

Proof-of-concept study

We recruit a small patient cohort to check, optimize, and adapt the assays and the study design.

Main study

After the successful proof-of-concept study, we generate data from a large patient cohort. Our team provides constant updates on our progress. Once we have finalized our analyses, we provide you with a comprehensive report containing actionable insights.

Ongoing collaboration and follow-Up

We maintain open communication, can provide follow-up clinical data and analyses and are happy to plan your next projects with you.

Sample projects

 

© Fraunhofer ITEM

Ex-vivo expansion of disseminated cancer cells is associated with progression of the disease in patients

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© Fraunhofer ITEM

Investigating early metastasis In the Collaborative Research Center / Transregio (SFB/TRR) 305

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© Fraunhofer ITEM

Cellular liquid biopsy: A milestone for personalized medicine in rare salivary gland cancer.

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Relevant publications

Guetter S, König C, Koerkel-Qu H, et al. MCSP+ metastasis founder cells activate immunosuppression early in human melanoma metastatic colonization. Nat Cancer. 2025;6(6):1017-1034. doi:10.1038/s43018-025-00963-w

Stojanović Gužvić N, Lüke F, Treitschke S, et al. Cellular liquid biopsy provides unique chances for disease monitoring, preclinical model generation and therapy adjustment in rare salivary gland cancer patients. Mol Oncol. 2025;19(7):2056-2073. doi:10.1002/1878-0261.13741

Funk C, Uhlig N, Ruzsics Z, et al. TheraVision: Engineering platform technology for the development of oncolytic viruses based on herpes simplex virus type 1. Mol Ther Oncol. 2024;32(1):200784. Published 2024 Feb 28. doi:10.1016/j.omton.2024.200784

Treitschke S, Weidele K, Varadarajan AR, et al. Ex vivo expansion of lung cancer-derived disseminated cancer cells from lymph nodes identifies cells associated with metastatic progression. Int J Cancer. 2023;153(10):1854-1867. doi:10.1002/ijc.34658

Werner-Klein M, Grujovic A, Irlbeck C, et al. Interleukin-6 trans-signaling is a candidate mechanism to drive progression of human DCCs during clinical latency. Nat Commun.2020;11(1):4977. Published 2020 Oct 5. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18701-4