April 27, 2017 | April featured news, products, and partnerships from around the diagnostics community from numerous companies, universities, and organizations, including Personalis, Mobidiag, Illumina, and more.
Personalis announced the order of ten Illumina NovaSeq 6000 systems to continue to scale its operations in 2017. The first two instruments have now been delivered. Personalis is partnering with leading biopharmaceutical companies to accelerate cancer immunotherapy development with advanced next-generation sequencing (NGS) services for clinical trials and translational research. In particular, Personalis is a pioneer in the field of personalized cancer vaccines and is actively involved in numerous current and planned clinical trials which leverage the company’s ACE ImmunoID Next Generation Sequencing Platform. Personalis ACE ImmunoID provides a comprehensive assessment of a tumor and its immune microenvironment, which includes the identification and characterization of neoantigens, Class I and Class II antigen presenting machinery, tumor escape mechanisms and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). This detailed characterization of individual tumors supports the synthesis of customized therapeutics for each patient. Press release
Mobidiag announced the issuance of two new patents complementing the Australian Patent n°2010247321 obtained in June 2016: US Patent n°9593381 and Japanese Patent n°6054178 covering a method and a kit for detecting antibiotic resistant bacteria, and more specifically, screening for carbapenemase genes causing carbapenem resistance in bacteria. “At Mobidiag, we have been developing fast and reliable tests for the detection of infectious diseases, including antibiotic resistance with our Amplidiag Carba+VRE kit and wider panels soon to come. These new additions to Mobidiag’s intellectual property are key in our global strategy and definitely strengthen our commitment towards the fight against antibiotic resistance, a major worldwide health concern nowadays” wrote Tuomas Tenkanen, CEO at Mobidiag. Press release
Corning has expanded its ADME/Tox product offerings to include Corning TransportoCells HEK293-derived ABC transporter membrane vesicles and Corning Supersomes Ultra Human Aldehyde Oxidase (AO) enzyme. Building on its large line of Corning Gentest in vitro transporter models, TransportoCells provide an innovative cell model for solute carrier (SLC) transporter studies. Corning has now developed ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter membrane vesicles based on the TransportoCells technology platform using a mammalian cell expression system. Corning’s new ABC transporter vesicles are made from HEK cells transiently transfected to over-express a single human ABC transporter protein. Using this mammalian expression system, the new products avoid many disadvantages associated with insect cell expression systems. The product portfolio now includes four human ABC transporter vesicles and a control vesicle. The company is also extending its line of Corning Gentest Supersome recombinant metabolic enzymes using a mammalian expression system. Corning Supersome Ultra Human AO is a stable and reliable in vitro tool for the study of AO-mediated metabolism, which has increasing importance in drug development. As a robust and consistent screening platform, Corning Supersomes Ultra Human AO delivers significantly higher (3- to 4-fold higher) activity as compared to bacterial expression systems. Press release
NMDX recently acquired the assets of Nuclea Biotechnologies (Nuclea). The assets acquired by NMDX include all of the intellectual property, biological material, capital equipment, licenses, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals and allowances, marketing and customer materials, trademarks, and all relevant scientific data. NMDX, headquartered in a newly designed and built immunohistochemistry facility in Lee, was formed to develop proprietary assays and screening technologies for the detection of various cancers, cardiovascular, hepatic diseases and metabolic disorders. Since its founding last year, the company has successfully raised almost $1 million dollars in capital and is expected to raise a total of $3-5 million by the middle of next year. With the acquisition of Nuclea’s assets, NMDX’s number one priority will be to sell all of the viable HER-2/neu (HER-2) kits that were acquired. Beyond that, NMDX’s focus will be marketing and growing market share for HER-2 and commercializing the Fatty Acid Synthase (FAS) assay designed for immunohistochemistry.
Seeding Labs introduced their Instrumental Access 2017 awardees at the Positively Instrumental celebration of global science. Each awardee will receive donated lab equipment through Instrumental Access, Seeding Labs’ flagship program that makes high-quality lab equipment, and supplies available to university departments and research institutes in developing countries. Equipment provides a foundation for other critical resources that allow scientists to generate new knowledge, leverage sustainable funding, and better prepare university students for the scientific workforce. The awardees are:
- Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán’s Department of Chemical Engineering,
- Universidad Pontificía Bolivariana’s Department of Nanotechnology Engineering,
- University of the West Indies’ Natural Products Institute,
- Redeemer’s University’s Department of Biological Sciences,
- Université de Dschang’s Department of Biochemistry,
- University of Lagos’ Department of Cell Biology & Genetics,
- Dar es Salaam University College of Education’s Department of Chemistry,
- Moi University’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Department of Medical Biochemistry,
- University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Department of Chemical Engineering,
- University of Zimbabwe’s Department of Biochemistry,
- The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda’s Department of Microbiology and Biotech Centre,
- National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia’s Institute of Molecular Biology,
- Nong Lam University’s Department of Biotechnology,
- Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University’s Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology