Recent advances in cancer immunotherapy have generated excitement across all fields of oncology. Immune checkpoint inhibitors and adoptive T-cell therapies have shown the capacity to generate sustainable results with less probability of recurrence than conventional or targeted cancer therapy. However, the field is still experiencing a lack of predictive biomarkers and companion or complementary diagnostics.
The Biomarker and Diagnostic Unit located at HMR is staffed by a team of professional scientists with expertise in genomics, immunology and oncology under the direction of the internationally recognized hematologist and C3i co-founder Dr. Lambert Busque.
We benefit from strategic partnerships with leaders in the field of Immuno-oncology that include:
Together with our partners, we offer synergistic business opportunities to both local and international biotech, pharmaceutical and academic clients, by providing cutting-edge discovery & diagnostic services covering molecular and cellular aspects of immuno-oncology as independent services and in support of our clinical and manufacturing units.
The services offered by the Biomarker and Diagnostic Unit include:
MOLECULAR SCREENING AND DIAGNOSTICS
Our next-generation sequencing platform allows us to perform high-throughput screenings by exome and transcriptome sequencing. More targeted approaches can also be used to monitor targets in a highly specific and quantitative manner.
- Exome-sequencing of tumor cells
- Transcriptome sequencing with complete sequence coverage or for overall expression-levels
- ThermoFisher Scientific’s Oncomine and AmpliSeq panels for more targeted purposes
- TCR-beta sequencing to evaluate T cell diversity within a sample and/or clone tracking in patients following immune therapies
- Nanostring’s panels to capture immune and functional pathways
- HLA-typing with a high resolution NGS strategy
- Sensitive approaches for SNP genotyping, vector copy number and other smaller scale purposes by qPCR or droplet digital PCR
IMMUNE-MONITORING
We enable biomarker and immune-monitoring using cutting-edge technologies including mass cytometry and T cell repertoire analysis by next-generation sequencing.
- TCR-beta repertoire tracking and diversity analysis using a long-read or short-read NGS strategy
- Mass cytometry for advanced multi-parameter analyses including Fluidigm’s MaxPar panels
- Cytokine profiling and functional assays