Hera BioLabs is a contract research organization (CRO) utilizing revolutionary gene editing technologies to create enabling preclinical research models for oncology & immuno-oncology. Hera’s platform model, the OncoRat SRG, is a SCID rat on the Sprague-Dawley background harboring a double knockout for the Rag2 and Il2rgamma genes. This enhanced immunodeficient rat model has a severely impaired immune system lacking B-cells, T-cells, and NK-cells. The OncoRat SRG overcomes limitations of mouse models such as NSG mice and the less immunodeficient Nude rat. For example, the OncoRat SRG enables tumor cell line xenograft models that were previously inefficient or not feasible in mouse models. While the long timeline required for the establishment of patient derived xenografts or PDX models in mice is often impractical; the OncoRat SRG grows ~10x larger tumors enabling PDX establishment and efficacy studies in fewer passages and a shorter amount of time.

In published data the OncoRat SRG has demonstrated key advantages for use in preclinical trials. Superior xenograft take rates, growth kinetics, and larger sample sizes make for powerful tumor models in the OncoRat SRG. Humanized mouse models have been utilized for immuno-oncology studies. The immune system of the OncoRat SRG has been successfully humanized as first published in our American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) EORTC NCI poster. The humanized OncoRat SRG may be an alternative model to humanized mice and syngeneic mouse models.

Hera is providing the SRG rat off-the-shelf as well as running preclinical studies to produce high-confidence, translational data. As a complement to our SRG rat platform services, we have experience in commercially available models such as NSG mice, SCID mice, NOD SCID mice, and the Nude rat. In addition to oncology services, we have successfully humanized the liver of the TK-NOG mouse for toxicology and metabolism studies.