Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

BostonGene Partners With NIH on Clonal Evolution Study

NEW YORK – BostonGene today announced a partnership with the National Institutes of Health to offer molecular profiling and therapy recommendations in a cancer study.

The software firm is launching a new study with collaborators at the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease to analyze the clonal evolution of solid and liquid tumors in patients.

The NIH researchers will repeatedly biopsy patients over the course of several years and perform genomic and transcriptomic analysis of those samples. Using next-generation sequencing data submitted by the researchers, BostonGene will create a molecular portrait of the tumor and its environment to identify significant somatic alterations, evaluate protein expression, estimate tumor heterogeneity, and predict a number of molecular features, including neoantigens, hereditary disposition, and tumor clonality. BostonGene will also provide treatment options and recommendations.

BostonGene declined to disclose financial terms of the collaboration.

"We get collaborators who are helping our solution to become more intelligent," said BostonGene President and CEO Andrew Feinberg. "A number of components of our solution are based on AI, therefore, the more unique cases we review, the smarter we get."

BostonGene, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, offers analytics that aggregate and incorporate the latest cancer research to enable individualized therapy recommendations. The firm recently raised $50 million in Series A financing from Japanese software firm NEC.

Feinberg added that the study will look at how clonal evolution affects the treatments recommended for a patient.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.