NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – NextBio today announced a deal with the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University to identify biomarkers and treatments for multiple myeloma.
The organizations will collaborate on a translational study using NextBio Clinical to interpret molecular data from patients with the disease, which constitutes only about 1 percent of all cancers in the US but has been especially difficult to treat. The goal of the study will be to make new discoveries that can improve care given to patients with refractory and relapsed forms of myeloma, NextBio said.
The Winship Cancer Institute is a National Cancer Institute-designated center. Its Director of Translational Research for the B-Cell Malignancy Program and principal investigator on the study, Sagar Lonial, said that for the study he and his research partners will collect RNA-seq, SNP, and copy number variation data from Winship's patient samples. They also will access multiple myeloma cell line data available in the NextBio platform, as well as myeloma data from public repositories that NextBio has curated.
"Integrating use of molecular data alongside clinical data in our cancer translational research projects is a top priority, and this partnership will help us solidify that workflow," he said in a statement.
Financial and other terms were not disclosed.
NextBio, based in Santa Clara, Calif., provides tools for the interpretation of large amounts molecular and other life sciences data. In June, it announced a deal with the Cancer Care Institute to analyze genomic data from cancer patients.