HCMI Organization

Map of HCMI Founders

Map of the HCMI Founders. The map shows geographical locations of the founders of the HCMI: National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, USA; Cancer Research UK in London, United Kingdom; Wellcome Sanger Institute in Hinxton, United Kingdom; and Hubrecht Organoid Technology in Utrecht, Netherlands.

Consortium

HCMI was created by the US National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cancer Research UK (CRUK), the Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI), and the foundation Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB). The consortium shares models, knowledge, and protocols to advance and refine model development. The specifics of collected data by each institution are not identical, but every effort is being made to maintain uniformity.

National Cancer Institute [1]

NCI’s Office of Cancer Genomics [2] (OCG), within the Center for Cancer Genomics [3] (CCG), manages the NCI-supported Cancer Model Development Centers [4] (CMDCs) and downstream model development pipeline. OCG also helps to facilitate communication between the CMDCs and the model development teams from CRUK, WSI, and HUB.

Cancer Research UK [5] and Wellcome Sanger Institute [6]

CRUK and WSI are supporting organoid generation for the United Kingdom’s arm of the HCMI. CRUK leverages their unique network of clinical sites to access clinical samples, while WSI derives and sequences organoid models and associated normal and tumor tissues.

Hubrecht Organoid Technology [7]

HUB generates and sequences organoid models for the HCMI.

Governance

The governance group of the funders has been established to ensure the coordination of all efforts within the HCMI.

Model Distributor

The models are broadly available through a single third-party distributor, American Type Culture Collection [8] (ATCC). ATCC is a non-profit biorepository whose mission for the HCMI is to (1) acquire cancer models from the generating laboratories; (2) perform standard intake procedures, expand and preserve the models; and (3) globally distribute the models and standard operating procedures, images, and other model-specific culture information.