Faulty Cancer Science With Misidentified And Contaminated Cell Lines

Better to be fit than increase your risk for cancer.

Modern cancer therapies start in cells - researchers compare cancer samples to healthy cells to discover how cancer is genetically different, and use cell lines to test promising new drugs. However, a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal Gynecologic Oncology shows that due to a high rate of contamination, misidentification and redundancy in widely available cell lines, researchers may be drawing faulty conclusions.

"I've seen faculty and graduate students leave my lab in tears when we discovered the cells on the label weren't the cells they were actually experimenting on," says Christopher Korch, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center and director of the center's DNA Sequencing and Analysis Service, the paper's co-first author. "When you get a cell line, you have to look that gift horse in the mouth - there's up to a 40 percent chance it's a Trojan horse, not what it says it is."

Oops.