This week, we’re taking a look at some of the companies that attended the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in Chicago.
Interview times:
01:55 Tessellate Bio
17:02 1Cell.Ai
44:04 Microbiotica
This includes interviews with Mat Robinson, SVP Research at Microbiotica, Mohan Uttarwar, CEO and co-founder of 1Cell.Ai, formerly OneCell Diagnostics, and Andree Blaukat, CEO of Tessellate Bio.
Microbiotica
Mat Robinson, SVP Research at Microbiotica, is one of our guests on this week’s podcast.
Microbiotica presented new data at AACR showing how the microbiome can improve, and about the mechanism of action of MB097, a clinical-stage drug candidate being evaluated in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in patients with advanced melanoma.
MB097 comprises nine different species of gut commensal bacteria, all linked to positive CPI response in multiple clinical studies. Microbiotica has developed in vitro human systems using primary immune cells to investigate how gut bacteria modulate the immune response to cancer.
Three of the MB097 strains induce dendritic cells to produce high levels of IL-12, which in turn stimulates Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes and NK cells with potent tumour cell killing activity.
1Cell.Ai
1Cell.Ai, which recently changed its name from OneCell Diagnostics, an AI-powered precision oncology company, announced a new product for the US biotech and pharma market and a new partnership ahead of its presence at the AACR meeting.
The company launched OncoIncytes, a multi-modal cancer diagnostic panel that integrates multiple types of data, including circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumour cells (CTC) at single cell resolution, RNA transcriptomics, and proteomics (150 proteins at the single cell level).
The company said the technology is transforming cancer research, drug development, patient selection, and therapy response monitoring with unprecedented granularity.
1Cell.Ai is also joining forces with BioSkryb Genomics, a pioneer in single cell multi-omics, to co-develop and commercialize next-generation single cell multi-omic solutions.
Researchers can now isolate CTCs at one in a billion, and characterize DNA, RNA, and protein targets from these individual single cells with unprecedented precision, significantly accelerating the development of advanced therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
On the podcast, we had a conversation with Mohan Uttarwar, CEO and co-founder of 1Cell.Ai.
Tessellate Bio
Boehringer Ingelheim and Tessellate Bio have partnered to develop first-in-class precision treatments for people with hard-to-treat cancers. The partners will focus on the development of first-in-class, oral precision treatments for people living with cancer.
The new collaboration with Tessellate Bio aims to develop treatments targeting tumours dependent on alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) for their growth. This feature is present in 10-15% of all cancers and associated with poor prognosis and a lack of targeted therapies.
Tessellate Bio has developed inhibitors of an undisclosed target that plays a key role in enabling the uncontrolled growth of ALT positive cancer cells. Blocking this target has been shown to lead to increased DNA damage, replication stress and ultimately tumour cell death, specifically in ALT positive tumour cells. A clear benefit is that healthy cells are not affected because they have no dependency on this mechanism.
To get in touch with guest suggestions, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com
Jim Cornall is editor of Deeptech Digest and publisher at Ayr Coastal Media. He is an award-winning writer, editor, photographer, broadcaster, designer and author. Contact Jim here.
