NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – PGXL Technologies said on Monday it has been awarded $149,910 to fund the development of a platform for isolating and analyzing circulating tumor cells in breast cancer.
The funding is being awarded through the Kentucky Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer Matching Funds program, and will be used to match a National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute grant contract awarded to PGXL in the fall, the firm said.
The NCI contract enabled Louisville, Ky.-based PGXL to develop a method for isolating and analyzing CTCs, and the matching funds will help the company "more quickly and precisely isolate CTCs," Kevin Goudy, director of R&D at PGXL, said in a statement. "Once we've done that, we'll use our next-generation sequencing techniques to dig deeper into the cancer's genomic information."
The company uses a technology called DEPArray that was developed by Silicon Biosystems and uses dielectrophoresis to isolate and manipulate cells in a suspension matrix. The technology can be used to investigate the underlying causes of disease, disease progression, and the basis of drug resistance and efficacy.
PGXL's sister company PGXL Laboratories said last week that it had been licensed by California to provide its testing services in the state.