Described herein are in vitro cancer metastasis models that recapitulate biological facets of organ specificity as indicated by the behavior of human colorectal cancer cells when on substrata of liver and lung biomatrix scaffolds, organ-specific matrix extracts generated by novel decellularization strategies. Tumor cells spontaneously formed colonies that mimicked in vivo metastatic lesions in terms of histology, biology and genetic and other phenotypic traits. Not to be bound by theory, it is postulated that responses of tumors to radiation or chemotherapeutic agents proved dependent on the matrix substratum used； thus, thus the scaffolds are believed to provide a powerful tool for cancer research and diagnosis.
