SEATTLE, Nov. 10, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SEngine Precision Medicine and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute today announced a collaboration to bring SEngine’s PARIS® Test to adult and pediatric patients with primary or metastatic solid-tumor central nervous system (CNS) cancers. The collaboration aims to provide patients and their oncologists with more information as to what therapies could be most effective in treating their cancer.
Nearly 24,530 patients will be diagnosed with brain or other nervous system cancers in 2021 within the United States1, and for many of these patients, especially those with recurrent, metastatic, or rare disease, a treatment path is not clear. Functional drug screening of patient-derived tumor models is being adopted across cancer types as a tool for oncologists seeking novel treatment options in hard-to-treat cancers. This collaboration will overcome barriers to tissue culture for primary or metastatic CNS tumors and advance SEngine’s PARIS® Test into clinical care for patients with solid-tumor CNS cancers.
Live tumor models from a biopsy or surgical resection of a patient’s primary or metastatic brain tumor will be generated at the Dana-Farber Center for Patient Derived Models (CPDM) using methods they have established for maximizing the viability of brain tumor cells. These patient-derived models will then be analyzed at SEngine’s laboratory in Seattle, where up to 44 drugs will be tested against the tumor model in the PARIS® Test, including the latest targeted, endocrine and current standard-of-care treatments. Oncologists will receive a report that ranks therapies based on the patient-tumor model, providing information on the tumor’s potential sensitivity or resistance to a battery of therapies.
The collaboration is based on years of scientific exchange between the director of the CPDM, Keith Ligon, MD, PhD, and SEngine co-founders Christopher Kemp, PhD, and Carla Grandori, MD, PhD. In 2017, Ligon, Kemp, and Grandori formed part of a team of physicians and scientists that founded the Society for Functional Precision Medicine to advance functional precision medicine into the clinic.
“Our team is pleased to work with SEngine to advance the PARIS® Test as the first functional precision medicine test of its kind performed in a CLIA laboratory for patients with CNS tumors,” said Ligon. “Functional precision medicine is revolutionizing current approaches to cancer care. SEngine’s drug screening of patient-derived tumor avatar models, generated by the Dana-Farber CPDM and stored as live tumor cells are essential to patients accessing modern functional precision medicine assays and personalized drug information. This information will complement genomics-only approaches and help oncologists select treatments.”
About PARIS® Test
The PARIS® Test is a next generation diagnostic test that predicts drug responses integrating knowledge of cancer genomics with drug sensitivity testing of patient-derived live cells combined with robotics and proprietary algorithms. SEngine's CLIA certified PARIS® Test generates actionable drug sensitivity reports for patients and is applicable to all solid tumors including colon, breast, lung, ovarian and pancreatic cancer. Cancer derived cells grown in 3D outside the body maintain the functionality of the original tumor as well as its genomic characteristics. For cancers where a treatment path is not clear, such as many metastatic and recurrent cancers, the PARIS® Test provides crucial information to treating physicians to match the right drug to the right patient.
About SEngine Precision Medicine
SEngine Precision Medicine Inc. is a precision oncology company revolutionizing cancer therapies by pre-testing drugs on patient-derived 3D cultures utilizing patient specific tumor cells. As a spin-out from the world-renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, SEngine is leveraging over two decades of R&D in diagnostics and drug discovery. The Company is commercializing the PARIS® Test, a next generation diagnostic test that predicts drug responses integrating knowledge of cancer genomics with phenotypic testing of patient-derived live cells combined with robotics and proprietary algorithms. SEngine's CLIA certified PARIS® Test generates actionable drug sensitivity reports for patients with solid tumors. SEngine is also pursuing drug discovery via strategic collaborations with biopharmaceutical / pharma companies by deploying its precision oncology platform.
Discover more at SengineMedicine.com and follow the latest news from SEngine on Twitter at @SEngineMedicine and on LinkedIn.
Contact:
Renee Volpini
reneevolpini@aol.com
917-923-8117
Contact at Dana-Farber Center for Patient Derived Models:
Dr. Kin Hoe Chow
models@dfci.harvard.edu
1 (617) 632-3641
1 American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts & Figures 2021. Atlanta, Ga: American Cancer Society; 2021.
