Punch line: Many scientists work has been undermined by the contamination and misidentification of cancer cell lines used in research labs around the world.
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Excerpted from the WSJ
Cancer experts seeking to solve the problem have found that a fifth to a third or more of cancer cell lines tested were mistakenly identified —with researchers unwittingly studying the wrong cancers, slowing progress toward new treatments and wasting precious time and money.
In hundreds of documented cases that undermine a broad swath of research, cancer samples that were supposed to be one type of tumor have turned out to be another, through either careless laboratory handling, mislabeling or other mistakes.
These mix-ups are maddeningly difficult to pinpoint: an improperly sterilized pipette, a lab worker momentarily distracted, a misread label or a typo on a record sheet.
When seeking cancer treatment for a specific tumor, he said, such mistakes “are an utter waste of public money, charity money and time.”
“It may be causing drugs to be used which are inappropriate for that particular type of cancer.”
The problem is particularly damaging for research into such rare cancers as adenoid cystic carcinoma, which strikes 1,200 people in the U.S. each year. The lack of a good cell line slows research and few in the field have the time or resources to create new lines.
Seeking to solve the problem, a committee led by ATCC, a nonprofit group based in Manassas, Va., released guidelines this year to establish standards to authenticate cancer cell lines.
ATCC is working with the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, to establish a central repository and database of cell lines that have undergone genetic testing and whose origins can be verified.
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