NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Charles River Laboratories said this week it will license its collection of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) tumors to InSphero. In addition, Charles River will use InSphero's proprietary 3D cell culture technology to extend and complement its preclinical services, using in vitro InSight tumor Microtissues derived from its existing PDX collection. In vitro 3D solutions enable the evaluation of a compound's potency compared to standard-of-care drugs, enabling the identification of the most promising drug candidates, tumor histotypes, and molecular subtypes.
Clongen Laboratories said this week that its clinical laboratory received accreditation from the College of American Pathologists. Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Clongen provides molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases, contract research, and preclinical trials support.
NeoGenomics this week opened its first international lab in Rolle, Switzerland. The facility will be a separate subsidiary called NeoGenomics Europe. The firm said that it brings NeoGenomics’ pharma services menu to the European market and will benefit clients by offering greater continuity of services for clinical trials based there.
Genomic Vision this week reported that its third quarter revenues grew 27 percent year over year with a sharp spike in in vitro diagnostic sales. The firm posted total revenues of €701,000 ($825,000) for the three months ending on Sept. 30, up from €550,000 in Q3 2016. Total revenues from sales grew to €512,000 from €231,000 a year ago. Within that, life science research sales rose to €161,000 from €133,000, while IVD sales climbed to €276,000 from €16,000, and revenues from Quest Diagnostics R&D decreased to €75,000 from €82,000 a year ago. Genomic Vision reported other revenues of €189,000 for the recently completed quarter, down from €319,000 in Q3 2016.
OpGen this week announced that it has been awarded a contract from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop smartphone-based clinical decision support solutions for antimicrobial stewardship and infection control in low- and middle-income countries. The one-year $860,000 award began Sept. 30 and funds development and evaluation of cloud-based mobile software.
Ambry Genetics announced this week that it will be collaborating with PWNHealth to offer telemedicine genetic counseling. Ambry currently employs more than 100 genetic counselors.
The Animal Cancer Foundation this week announced it has received a $1 million gift from The Blue Buffalo Foundation to support the Canine Cancer Genome Project, which seeks to map the tumor genomes of the most common canine cancers. The Animal Cancer Foundation has assembled a scientific advisory council of experts in cancer genetics, drug development, and comparative oncology to author a request for proposals for genomics laboratories capable of generating, analyzing, and hosting the resulting data in the public domain.
The Autism Speaks MSSNG team announced this week that it has uploaded an additional 2,030 fully sequenced genomes to its cloud-based databank, making it the world’s largest whole genome resource for autism research. Autism Speaks makes MSSNG resources freely available to qualified researchers worldwide, together with a tool kit of online analytic tools.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on the GenomeWeb site.