Week of 8th April 2024 in biotech and AACR24
Many NGS and Single-cell and Spatial Biology companies with a presence at AACR24
There have been several contributions on the use of 10X Genomics TXG 0.00%↑ technologies at AACR24.
An example of using TXG Xenium for the characterization of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in ER+ breast cancer. Xenium is single-cell resolution, so applying this technology to breast cancer tissues allows the researchers to gain insight of the heterogeneity of cells present in the tumour micro-environment (TME).
A similar contribution in this cancer TME field was made by Charles Swanton and team in London, UK (Crick institute and collaborators).
His tweetorial explains how the TME changes in different subtypes of Lung cancer (LUAD and others), and how that can be used to better diagnose and treat lung cancer, and predict the prognosis (prognostic indicators).
Alpenglow Biosciences also had a poster at AACR on the 3D Spatial Quantification of Fibrosis and Inflammation in the TME. Alpenglow is one of the players in Spatial Biology, with a special focus on 3D determination of tissue samples.
STOmics is the commercial entity putting forward the Stereo-seq method as one of the spatial-omics offerings out there. They also had a presence at AACR.
Nanostring now owned by a private fund and revived from the ashes of Chapter 11 bankruptcy also presented at AACR.
Not all have been good news for Nanostring as of late, including the fact that their technology is dropping out of the final selection for a large circa $50M international MOSAIC project. This consolidates rivals such as 10X Genomics Xenium in this fast-paced field of Spatial Biology.
Another company with a presence at AACR was Miltenyi Biotec, which have a large portfolio of products that are used in many ways to study cell and spatial biology, including their MACSima Platform.
Canopy Biosciences and their CellScape platform presented a poster and had a booth with presentations as part of their presence at AACR.
In the field of Next-Generation Sequencing, we saw Ultima Genomics having a presence at AACR, with posters and presentations.
Also Oxford Nanopore, which presented on cancer bioinformatics using ONTs datasets
In a recent publication in Cell, researchers have found an association with the levels of a bacteria called Fusobacterium and the resistance to immune checkpoint blockade in lung cancer. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00312-X
Even though studying the microbiome has had a rocky start in the last decade or so, we are starting to see more and more publications that include this type of omics, microbiome assays, in these type of human health studies, e.g. for cancer research.
This goes from investigating how the microbiome influences cancer progression, to using the microbiome for biomarker discovery for prognosis and treatment responses of cancer, to also understanding how the microbiome affects the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies, or the role of microbial metabolites in cancer, with a focus on how these small molecules influence tumorigenesis.
We will see more of this science percolating into cancer treatment and monitoring, and there are several companies already well positioned to capitalize from these developments. For example, Merck, which is known for its work with checkpoint inhibitors, or BMS which would be able to use the microbiome in combination with immunotherapies, or Astrazeneca, which has shown interest in the microbiome and its potential for oncology. Chugai and Astellas are both companies that are part of the growing number of pharma companies focusing on the microbiome in cancer research. Chugai has developed several antibodies for the treatment of cancer, such as Phesgo for HER2-positive breast and colorectal cancer, and T-Cell Redirecting Antibodies (TRABs) which are bispecific antibodies for cancer immunotherapy that bind to tumor antigens as well as CD3 expressed on T cells.
Akoya Bio AKYA 0.00%↑ also had a presence at AACR24, with up to 3 different posters being presented for this company’s Spatial Biology technology.
One on Tumor-immune phenotyping,
Another one on Tumor Immune Landscape of Glioblastoma
And a third on Tumor Microenvironment (TME) of gliomas