Dianne Newton, Ph.D., Sr. Principal Scientist has served as the Head of the In Vivo Evaluation Program since 2007. In 2013, the In Vivo Evaluation Program began to devote substantial effort to the development of the National Cancer Institute’s Patient-Derived Models Repository (PDMR) which comprises patient-derived xenografts (PDXs), 3D patient-derived organoids (PDOrgs), in vitro 2D patient-derived tumor cell lines (PDCs) and their associated fibroblast cell lines (CAFs) from a wide ranch of tumor histologies. Dr. Newton directs the development of the 2D and 3D cell lines, initially focusing on the development of cell lines from the common cancers (colon, lung, breast, etc.) and later focusing on the rare and recalcitrant cancers (pancreatic, sarcoma, small cell lung cancer). All cell lines undergo rigorous quality control procedures to ensure quality and purity before deposited into the PDMR. Dr. Newton also manages the staff who generate PDXs, evaluate the efficacy of approved anticancer drugs, investigational and experimental agents on both PDXs and the traditional xenografts, and who conduct in vivo studies in support of the NExT program and other NCI programs such as Natural Products Branch and the Clinical Pharmacodynamics- Biomarkers Program.
Prior to her work with the PDMR, Dr. Newton was head of the Drug Mechanism Group (DMG) providing dedicated support to the Biological Testing Branch, DTP, NCI. The scope of research of the DMG was to determine the mechanism of action and identification of potential surrogate markers of drug activity for a select number of small molecule agents slated for preclinical development using transcriptomic- and proteomic- based platforms.
Dr. Newton holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. and a BA from Boston University, Boston, MA in Biology and Chemistry. She was the recipient of the Pharmacology Research Associate (PRATT Fellow) award and has co-authored >90 papers and 18 book chapters.