FAQs

This is usually the individual(s) who created the tangible new research tool. For example, this could be the post-doc who created the research tool in the laboratory, and/or their principal investigator or lab manager who developed and planned the creation of the tool.

If you created a research tool whilst you were employed at a company, university or research institute, then there will be specific terms in place, usually detailed in your employment or other contract, that determine the ownership of the rights in any research tools that you create. These terms can differ between countries and between institutes. In the UK, for example, the owner is typically the university or other entity that you were employed by or affiliated to at the time you developed the research tool.

The research tool website page will state the inventors and owners of a research tool and the inventor’s affiliated research institute (if applicable) at the time the research tool was developed. If you have made another research tool available via CancerTools, such other research tool will also be referenced.

No. If you wish to apply for a patent for your research tool, it is up to you or the owner of the research tool (as applicable) to apply. If your research tool already has an associated patent (and/or trade mark), it is up to the affiliated institute to maintain those intellectual property rights at their discretion.

A third party may have rights in a component of your research tool that has been developed elsewhere, e.g. at another institute, or by somebody else, such as host cell line, fluorescent tag, promoter vector etc. For example, if you create a new genetically modified cell line, the creator of the parental cell line (if not you) would also need to be identified. If another laboratory developed the parental line, then that laboratory/their affiliated institute would have rights in the parental line and therefore potentially in your research tool. There may also be terms in place between your institute and a third party that determine ownership of the rights in certain research tools. This means that multiple institutes could have ownership rights in your research tool, and you will need permission from all those third parties before you can commercialise the research tool – something that the team at CancerTools is here to help with.

When a research tool is made available via CancerTools, ownership of the tool doesn’t change. As the inventor or owner of a research tool, you, and your affiliated research institute if applicable (at the time the research tools was developed), are free to continue to use the tool for your own research and teaching purposes. CancerTools will manage access requests and distribute your tool to cancer researchers globally.

Cell line authentication is an important part of research quality,  but provenance goes beyond identity verification. Use this checklist to assess how  

much you know about the origin, history and traceability of the models used in your research.  

CancerTools is an established, single, centralised, online collaborative specifically focused on global cancer research tools such as antibodies, cell lines, experimental models, small molecules etc. from 180+ institutes worldwide.

CancerTools shares a mission with cancer researchers to accelerate cancer research. To that end, tools accessed through CancerTools pay for future cancer research, via a global revenue share to the inventing researcher and to Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest cancer research charitable foundation. Visit the tool collection.

As a non-profit organisation, we are unable to provide samples of our tools free of charge.

Most of our tools are already available with competitive prices.

For further information please refer to the tool pages to ensure that the tools meet your needs before ordering.

The following payment options are available:

– Payment via credit card through a secure PayPal link provided upon request.
– Purchase order with Net 30 days payment terms.

Should you require information concerning payment details for bank transfers, vendor set up or tax forms, please enquire by emailing [email protected].

Your place of work determines whether VAT is charged.

It is therefore vital that your customer profile accurately reflects your place of work. This ensures that the correct level of VAT is added when paying through purchase order.

For credit card payments, VAT is automatically added, but can be claimed back by academic institutions.

If you believe that you are exempt, please provide your VAT registration details within the order process, alternatively please contact us by emailing [email protected].

We can help provide your organisation with a competitive quote that itemises the product details and shipping cost for your review. Once a quote is accepted our teams will help to process your order and take payment.

Quotes are valid for 3 months and subject to price change and stock availability should the request not be fulfilled within this timeframe.

You will receive an automated order acknowledgement/acceptance email including estimated dispatch time.

Once the order is dispatched, you will receive a shipping notification and tracking details via email. In the unlikely event of a delay, we will be sure to keep you informed and get in touch with you via email.

This information can be found in the handling section on the tool webpage. However, in general:

We do not use any agents, all our tools are being sold directly from our website CancerTools.org and shipped globally from our depository in the UK.

If you are interested in any of our tools, please let us know the 6-digit tool sku/ catalogue number from our website and we will be happy to provide you with the quote.

We sell all our tools directly from our website and ship Worldwide* from our biorepository based in United Kingdom.

Please note that shipments of our tools to different countries might require additional permits and procedures to be followed to secure smooth transit and custom clearance. As a non-profit organisation we are doing our utmost to minimise cost.

*We may need to use a specialist courier due to dry ice/domestic custom clearance restrictions/regulations which we will discuss with you at the time of placing your order.

A research tool does not need to be patented to be available on CancerTools.

Your research tool does not need to have been included in a published research paper. However, you will need to provide evidence of the tool’s use and functionality. We also ask that you keep us updated of any publications when they are granted.

CancerTools will provide you with instructions on the packaging requirements and how to package your research tools to ensure safe delivery to our biorepository and production facilities. A team member will also be available to answer any queries you may have on the packaging process.

CancerTools will liaise with you to arrange the collection of your tools for shipping using our nominated courier. Although the collection is complimentary for all CancerTools community members, depending on the region you are requesting the collection from, you may need to liaise directly with the nominated courier to arrange your research tools collection at a time that suits you – our team are able to provide guidance on this process if needed.

If you have developed modified cell lines using CRISPR-Cas9 please get in touch.

Cancer Research Technology Limited (trading research tools as CancerTools) has been granted a non-exclusive license to the CRISPR-Cas9 technology by ERS Genomics Ltd under the patent rights listed below.  This license from ERS Genomics Ltd allows CancerTools to develop and commercialise CRISPR-Cas9 modified cell lines for research use only. CancerTools can provide these modified CRISPR-Cas9 cell lines to companies under a label-use only license.

ERS Genomics Ltd holds an exclusive worldwide license from Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier to the foundational intellectual property covering CRISPR-Cas9 for all applications other than use as a human therapeutic. The patent rights belonging to ERS Genomics Ltd are listed below. These patent applications have broad and dominant claims covering CRISPR-Cas9 compositions and methods of genome editing in any organism.

Click to view ERS Genomics Ltd Granted Patents

By in vitro production methods; we do not produce in ascites fluid.

Monoclonal antibodies are supplied as 0.11 mL aliquots (to include overage) at a concentration of either 1.0mg/mL or 2.0mg/mL ±0.1mg/mL, in Phosphate Buffered Saline (PBS) containing 0.02% sodium azide as preservative.

CAUTION:  Sodium azide is toxic if ingested and due care should be exercised.

IgG by Protein A (murine) or Protein G (rat) affinity chromatography, which typically give a > 95% degree of purity.  IgM is purified using a thiophilic chromatographic method.

The applications listed on our antibody product pages should be considered recommended or reported applications rather than applications that have been independently validated by CancerTools.

As a distributor of research tools developed in academic laboratories, we do not routinely perform in-house application-specific validation (e.g. Western blot, flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, ELISA) for every antibody in our catalogue. Instead, our application recommendations are based on information provided by the originating laboratory, published scientific literature, and any supporting validation data supplied by the inventors.

The level of validation available can therefore vary between products. Some antibodies may have extensive published performance data across multiple applications, while others may have only been characterised in a limited number of experimental settings.

Where additional validation data, protocols, publications, or technical notes are available, we are happy to share these upon request. If you are planning to use an antibody in a specific application, please contact our Technical Support team using the form below and we will advise on the data currently available and any relevant user experience for that application.

As with all research-use antibodies, optimisation may be required to establish performance under your specific experimental conditions.

If you do have individual requirements, we are more than happy to discuss them so please do not hesitate to contact us.

There is no universal thawing protocol suitable for all cell lines. Some cell lines are sensitive to centrifugation following thawing, while others are more sensitive to residual DMSO and may require specific recovery conditions to maximise viability.

Please refer to the product datasheet in the Documentation section of the product page for any available cell line-specific protocols. If no protocol is available, contact our Technical Support team and we will provide detailed guidance for thawing, recovery and routine culture of your cell line.

Recommended culture conditions, including growth medium, supplements, seeding density, split ratios, and other handling considerations, are provided in the Product Datasheet in the Documentation section of the product page where available.

As culture requirements can vary significantly between cell lines, we strongly recommend following any cell line-specific instructions supplied with the product. These protocols are based on information provided by the originating laboratory and our experience supporting users of the tool.

If a detailed protocol is not currently available for your cell line, please contact our Technical Support team. We are continually expanding our collection of product-specific documentation and can provide guidance on recommended media, seeding densities, passaging schedules, split ratios, and general culture conditions for your cell line.

Yes. All CancerTools cell lines are routinely tested and certified mycoplasma-free prior to release.

Where required, batch-specific Certificates of Analysis (CoAs) and supporting quality control documentation can be provided upon request. If you require a CoA for a particular cell line or lot number, please contact our Technical Support team and we will be happy to assist.

CancerTools does not routinely perform human pathogen testing (e.g. HIV, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C) on its cell lines as part of standard quality control release testing.

In many cases, information regarding pathogen screening may be available from the originating laboratory or depositing institution. Where such information exists, we are happy to provide it upon request.

If pathogen screening data are not available and testing is required for your institution’s biosafety or compliance procedures, we can arrange for a sample from the production batch associated with your order to be sent for pathogen testing through an external provider. Please note that this service will incur an additional fee and may extend the delivery timeline.

If you require pathogen screening information for a specific cell line, please contact our Technical Support team and we will be happy to discuss the options available.

There is no single passage number that applies to all CancerTools cell lines. As a distributor of research tools originating from academic laboratories around the world, the passage number of the material received from the depositor can vary considerably depending on the history and nature of the cell line.

Our standard approach is to establish a master cell bank as soon as possible following receipt of the material, typically within a limited number of passages, in order to preserve the characteristics of the original cells and minimise culture-induced drift. Working stocks supplied to customers are then generated from these early banked materials rather than through continuous propagation.

As a result, the passage number at shipment will vary between products and batches. Where known, passage information may be included in the product documentation or Certificate of Analysis. If passage number is a critical experimental parameter for your work, please contact our Technical Support team and we will be happy to advise on the specific material currently available.

Where possible, CancerTools routinely performs Short Tandem Repeat (STR) authentication of human cell lines as part of our quality control process. Authentication is carried out by comparing the STR profile of the cells against an available reference profile.

For cell lines where no reference profile exists, we are actively working to generate and establish reference STR profiles. As STR authentication was incorporated into our routine QC programme relatively recently, STR data are generally more likely to be available for batches produced within the last two years.

If STR authentication data are not available for your specific batch or cell line, we may be able to arrange generation of a new STR profile upon request. Please note that this may incur an additional fee and could extend the delivery timeline.

If you require STR authentication information for a particular cell line, please contact our Technical Support team and we will be happy to advise on the data currently available and any additional testing options.

A primary cell culture refers to cells that have been removed from a live donor/specimen and have been established in an in vitro environment.

Secondary cell culture refers to cell lines that have been immortalized, usually by overexpressing an enzyme called human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), and can divide indefinitely. Many tissue types are not amenable to immortalisation, so primary cell culture may be the only option in some circumstances.

Both primary and secondary cell cultures have advantages and disadvantages:

1. 1. Using primary cell cultures will provide biological results in specific cells of interest, that are more accurate to those seen in the host tissue. However, there will be a finite number of cells with a finite lifespan for you to use.

1. 1. In contrast, secondary cell cultures will be easier to maintain and have a more uniform and long-lasting cell population, but as the cultures have grown and been passaged in artificial cell culture media, they will provide biological responses different from cells within the original host tissue. Additionally, these cells may have genetic drift, changes or mutations acquired during repeated passaging and culture maintenance.

To overcome some of the limitations of secondary cell cultures, some researchers prefer to use human plasma-like cell culture media such as Plasmax^TM, rather than standard media.

Although it can be tempting to source cell lines from colleagues they may inadvertently supply you with contaminated or misidentified cell lines. If they can provide you with confirmation that the cells are mycoplasma free and the DNA profile has been confirmed to be as expected you can have more confidence.  If not, is it worth taking the risk?

PDX models are created by implanting human tumour tissue into immunodeficient mice.

PDX models are superior in recapitulating patient tumour characteristics including spatial structure, intratumour heterogeneity, genomic features, tumour growth rates, metastatic patterns and drug responses. These highly translatable preclinical models can be used to more accurately predict therapeutic efficacy and de-risk preclinical in vivo drug validation.

Fresh or thawed human breast tumour fragments were implanted into the cleared inguinal mammary fat pad of female immunocompromised mice [NOD scid gamma (NSG) Jackson Laboratory 5557; NOD/scid, Jackson Laboratory 1303 or NOD rag gamma (NRG), Jackson Laboratory 7799].

For liquid specimens, pleural effusion, or ascites fluid, 1-2 milion cells were injected into cleared mammary fat pads in Matrigel.

For estrogen receptor positive (ER+) tumours, mice were dosed with E2 beeswax pellets and given supplemental E2 via drinking water. When tumours reached 1-2 cm in diameter, tumours were aseptically collected and re-implanted into new mice or banked. Estrogen-independent ER+ breast PDX models were generated when ER+ PDX tumours were implanted into ovariectomised mice without E2 supplementation.

Additional Information on PDX establishment can be found here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43018-022-00337-6/figures/9

We are providing vials containing early passage (P3-P9) cryopreserved PDX tumour tissue fragments, including those from the most advanced and lethal forms of breast cancer, such as aggressive, metastatic and treatment–resistant subtypes. Each vial contains 5 good fragments, and we recommend implanting 1 fragment into 1 mouse.

We can provide STR profiling and human and mouse pathogen testing data upon request.

This collection of NSCLC PDX models were derived from multiple regions of primary NSCLC tumours from patients enrolled in the Lung TRACERx study.

Primary NSCLC tumour material was minced and injected subcutaneously in the flank of immunodeficient male NOD scid gamma (NSG) mice in growth factor-reduced matrigel. To prepare frozen tumour samples for injection, the sample cryovial was warmed in a 37°C water bath until just thawed. The whole sample was then transferred into a sterile 1.5 ml centrifuge tube and topped up with transport medium. The sample was centrifuged at 300 x g for 5 minutes and the supernatant was removed. The sample was then washed with transport medium. If required, any large pieces of tissue were collected and finely minced with a scalpel to ensure they could pass through a 16G needle. The sample was then centrifuged again, gently resuspended in ice-cold Matrigel, and kept on ice before subcutaneous injection. When tumours reached 1.5 cm3 in volume (calculated as 0.5 x length x width2), tumours were aseptically collected and reimplanted into new mice or cryopreserved.

We are providing vials containing early passage (P1-P4) cryopreserved minced PDX tissue. Each vial contains sufficient PDX tumour tissue to inject into one mouse for local expansion and banking.

We provide a Product Information Sheet for each model, on the respective product page, showing clonal mutations and representative histology images. Pathogen testing records of mouse colonies used to generate these models are available upon request. STR profiling has not been routinely performed on these models, however, mutation data is available from:

Hynds R.E. et al., Nature Communications 15, 4653 (2024). PMID: 38821942

Plasmax^TM is a cell culture medium that closely mimics the metabolic and physiological profile of human plasma. It is a chemically defined and ready-to-use medium, painstakingly developed to give the best possible representation of in vivo conditions.

Dr. Tardito, an oncometabolism researcher at the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute, observed that growth focussed media can have a range of effects on cellular metabolism that is cell-type and condition specific (e.g. normoxia/ hypoxia). This effects the experimental results obtained. Dr. Tardito sought to develop a human plasma like cell culture medium that represents the in vivo  cellular environment by providing a physiological complement of nutrients provided by human plasma - Plasmax^TM.   Find out more about Plasmax^TM

Growth focussed media lack a number of key components that are present in human plasma like media such as Plasmax^TM . Plasmax^TM contains over 80 components, of which 50 have been optimised to the levels found within human plasma, providing a more comprehensive and physiologically relevant nutritional profile.

Yes, Plasmax^TM is ready-to-use and is designed to be used as a direct replacement for conventional media. Cell viability has been tested in various cell types with 2.5% Foetal Bovine Serum.

Unlike growth-focussed media, Plasmax^TM is designed to mimic the nutrient profile of human plasma, better reflecting the cancer microenvironment and providing more physiologically accurate experimental results. Growing cells in Plasmax^TM results in a metabolite profile that is statistically similar to in vivo tumours.

Plasmax^TM is the only ready-to-use cell culture medium containing growth enhancing components at physiological levels as well as essential trace elements. These trace elements are essential as they:

• encourage faster cell culture proliferation in comparison with DMEM when both are supplemented with 2.5% foetal bovine serum.
• increase the antioxidant capacity of cells, preventing ferroptosis-induced cell death.
• sustain cell growth even in serum free conditions.
• encourage faster cell culture proliferation in comparison with DMEM when both are supplemented with 2.5% foetal bovine serum.

Plasmax^TM has been used to successfully culture a number of cell lines including:

Since its composition reflects that of human plasma, it should be suitable for many other cell types.

If you have specific cells you wish to use Plasmax^TM on, or would like further details on the cell lines mentioned above, we are happy to answer your question in more detail. Please contact us.

Plasmax^TM can be supplemented with antibiotics. The inventors have supplemented Plasmax with penicillin-streptomycin to grow primary cells without issues. They do not have direct experience with Primocin (proprietary components) but do not anticipate any problem by supplementing it to Plasmax.

Plasmax^TM does not contain any proteins, growth factors or lipid therefore FBS should be added at the concentration you consider most appropriate. The range is from 0% (+ growth factors and albumax) to 10% depending on the cell type and experiment. The use of dyalized FBS reduces the contribution of metabolites at unknown concentrations, minimizing the divergence from the original Plasmax formulation. We would recommend dialyzed FBS for the experiments where the concentration of specific nutrients is critical.

Yes. Custom formulations of Plasmax™ are available to accommodate specific experimental requirements. Common requests include glucose-free and phenol red-free formulations, although other modifications may also be possible depending on the project.

Because custom media are manufactured to order, they are typically subject to a minimum order quantity of 20 units. Customers should take this minimum volume requirement into account when requesting a quotation or evaluating the feasibility of a customised formulation for their research programme.

If you are interested in a custom version of Plasmax™, please contact our team at [email protected] with details of your required formulation. We will be happy to discuss available options, minimum order requirements, lead times, and pricing.