NEW YORK – Washington University in St. Louis and informatics firm BostonGene announced Thursday an expanded collaboration on profiling renal cell carcinoma (RCC), a type of kidney cancer, and its tumor microenvironment.
"We're collaborating with BostonGene to evaluate how its technology, which includes the integrated analysis of NGS and multiplex immunofluorescence imaging, can be applied to help make treatment decisions for individual patients with renal cell carcinoma and ultimately improve patient outcomes," James Hsieh, a medical oncologist and professor of medicine at WUSTL, said in a statement.
BostonGene will use its software to analyze data from whole-exome sequencing, transcriptome sequencing, single nuclei RNA sequencing, whole-genome bisulfite sequencing for methylation analysis, cytometry, immunofluorescence microscopy, and clinical tests including PD-L1 expression and blood cell count.
The RCC study is part of a master agreement signed in October 2019 to collaborate on multiple research projects. Financial and other details of the master agreement have not been disclosed.
Waltham, Massachusetts-based BostonGene, which emerged from stealth in early 2019, has raised at least $50 million and has already announced collaborations with the National Institutes of Health, Weill Cornell Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
WUSTL and BostonGene noted they will be evaluating response to treatments already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.