NEW YORK, May 24 (GenomeWeb News) - Cepheid has received a $1.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to validate its quantitative PCR-based platform for detecting tumor markers, the company said today.
Under the two-year phase II grant, scientists from Cepheid, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the Medical University of South Carolina will test and validate Cepheid's GeneXpert platform, which is based on quantitative reverse transcription PCR, for studying breast cancer and melanoma. The researchers will use the system to detect RNA from cancer cells in lymph node cross sections.
Cepheid will receive approximately $900,000 for the first year of the grant.