Partnering with patients to develop new cell models of rare cancers, the Boehm Lab uses high throughput screening and computer assisted microscopy to find the best cell culture recipes to promote growth of donated cells. These pseudo-colored cells are taken from a desmoid tumor—a rare form of soft-tissue sarcoma.

The model—whose success is seen in the large number of cells and swirling growth patterns—has been used to test thousands of candidate drugs. The team is now expanding this patient-powered research to other understudied tumors, and sharing the resulting models with researchers across the globe.