NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – DeNovo Sciences today announced a collaborative research agreement with South Texas Accelerated Research Therapeutics (START) to perform whole-genome sequencing on circulating tumor cells.
Under the terms of the agreement, START will collect blood from cancer patients and use DeNovo instruments and reagents for CTC enrichment and purification. The enriched CTCs will then be sent to a lab for whole-genome sequencing.
START and DeNovo have also signed a separate agreement to test the ability of the DeNovo platform to capture CTCs for use in patient-derived xenograft mouse models for drug discovery and biomarker development. DeNovo's fully automated CTC detection system can analyze biomarkers at the single cell level, the firm said. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed.
"Obtaining tumor tissue for genome sequencing and molecular profiling remains a considerable problem. Invasive tumor biopsies put patients at risk of complications as well as being painful. This collaboration between START and DeNovo, we hope, will solve this by obtaining sufficient circulating tumor cells for whole-genome sequencing," Anthony Tolcher, START director of clinical research, said in a statement.