Olfactory neuroblastoma mouse model

Unmet Need

Olfactory neuroblasoma (ONB) is an agressive tumor that is thought to arise in basal stem cells in the adult olfactory epithelium. This rare cancer affects 1 in 2.5 million people each year with patients experiencing nose bleeds, loss of smell, difficulty breathing, and pain. Treatment options and understanding of the disease are limited due to a lack of tissue and animal models with precise ONB genetics and comprehensive characterization required to study the disease.

Technology

Duke Inventors in collaboration with the University of Utah have generated two novel mouse models with ONB. Specifically, by virally infecting previously described Rb1/p53/Myc (RPM) and RPMA mice intranasally with Adeno-CGRP-promotor-Cre virus, Duke researchers created mouse models that developed tumors that were diagnosed by a pathologist as ONB.