Abbreviation:

FAST-SEQ

Title:

Focused Analysis of Solid Tumor material by single molecule SEQuencing.

In short:

Development of a new method predicting drug response in cancer.

Tags:

Diagnostics, Project Management, Innovation

Funding scheme:

EuroTransBio (ETB)

Time frame:

1 October 2011 to 30 September 2014

Weblink:

NA

Description:

Cancers are molecularly different entities even within histopathological subgroups, and response to adjuvant therapy depends upon a match between the biological characteristics of the cancer cells and the mode of action of the drug. Whereas the knowledge of somatic changes causing cancer is rapidly growing, the currently available technology to test a wide range of molecular markers for translational research or clinical use is far from sufficient. In order to offer patients optimal treatment based on the principles of personalized medicine, high-end multi-marker readout methods are needed. The primary objective of the FAST-SEQ project was thus to develop a technique, that can predict responders, non-responders and adverse responders to drugs that are already used in established cancer treatments or were clinically available in short term. Drug response and adverse reactions merely depend on somatic changes in the tumor and on inherited SNPs in genes that are components of pharmacokinetic pathways. The technique aimed to determine both the somatic and the inherited changes using an all-in-one test for the analysis of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor biopsies, using Single Molecule Sequencing technology. GenomeScan coordinated the entire project and led the efforts to develop and validate the FAST-SEQ technology.

Output:

Product (service): The project yielded several methods for targeted sequencing. These methods have now been replaced by a newly designed service for molecular pathology based on semi-conductor sequencing.

Acknowledgements:

This project has received funding from EuroTransBio, contract nr. ETB110018