NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Indivumed is collaborating with the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore to launch a cancer library initiative that will support the development of precision diagnostics and personalized cancer treatments.
Within this initiative, the partners will leverage the country's clinical network to collect a variety of omics data from consenting individuals. The data will be stored in the so-called Asian-centric Cancer Database, and be available for local scientists and clinicians for academic and translational research.
Hamburg, Germany-based oncology research firm Indivumed already operates a database, called IndivuType, which integrates patients' clinical information with genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, precision proteomic, and digital histopathology data, derived from biospecimens that are collected and preserved using proprietary methods. The Asian-centric Cancer Database will become a part of Indivumed's multi-omics repository and will contain proteogenomic profiling data, which researchers will be able to explore using an integrated suite of analytical technologies, bioinformatics, and artificial intelligence solutions.
"A*STAR's IMCB in Singapore is one of the world's leading research institutions, and Singapore represents a kind of 'mini-Asia' adding important ethnic aspects to our global cancer database IndivuType," Indivumed CEO Hartmut Juhl said in a statement.
The present collaboration with IMCB builds on an earlier partnership between Indivumed and A*STAR's Research Support Centre focused on proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis of tissue samples from Indivumed's biobank. "Indivumed's global access to biospecimens, as well as its professional standards for tissue collection, processing, and clinical data, provide unique opportunities to understand phenotypic effects in cancer patients," Wanjin Hong, executive director of A*STAR's IMCB, said in a statement.