Personal Genome Diagnostics (PGDx), a leading provider of advanced cancer genome testing products and services, has announced its participation in the Blood Profiling Atlas pilot of the Cancer Moonshot initiative championed by Vice President Biden and the White House.
The Blood Profiling Atlas is focused on the emerging field of cancer liquid biopsies, which use cell free tumor DNA (ctDNA), circulating tumor cells or exosomes from the patient's bloodstream to non-invasively profile alterations in tumor DNA.
With a goal of jump starting the development of a high-quality open database for liquid biopsies, the Blood Profiling Atlas pilot is intended to facilitate development of frameworks and methods that increase the clinical utility of liquid biopsies and allow faster FDA approval of safe and effective blood profiling technologies for patient benefit.
PGDx will share its expertise and protocols as well as non-proprietary ctDNA profiling data generated with the company's PlasmaSELECTTM platform.
PGDx will submit data from 500 samples to the Blood Profiling Atlas during this pilot phase and will also work with academic, pharmaceutical/biotechnology and molecular laboratory partners to enable their data contributions.
Additionally, PGDx is offering the extensive expertise of its team of genomic, computational and diagnostic scientists to support the initiative.
"PGDx is a pioneer in cancer genomics and liquid biopsies, building upon the exceptional expertise and access to advanced technologies of our co-founders at Johns Hopkins and our growing team of talented researchers," said Doug Ward, Chief Executive Officer of Personal Genome Diagnostics.
PGDx recently launched the PlasmaSELECTTM 64, which profiles tumors from a simple blood draw. It identifies clinically actionable and functionally important sequence mutations and structural alterations across multiple cancer types with exceptional accuracy. PGDx believes that PlasmaSELECT 64 is the most clinically actionable, pan-cancer CLIA-validated plasma assay available today.
The genes in PlasmaSELECT 64 have been shown to have biological and functional relevance to aid in making treatment decisions and include 15 unique biomarkers, 11 of which are associated with active clinical trials.
John Simmons, PhD, manages translational science and diagnostics at PGDx and has been the company's liaison to the Cancer Moonshot initiative
PGDx offers a complete range of cancer genome analysis tools, including exome and targeted approaches for tissue specimens, targeted approaches for plasma samples and a variety of custom tissue and plasma-based options designed to address the specific research needs of cancer researchers and drug developers.
It was established in 2010 by researchers from Johns Hopkins University who are pioneers in cancer genome sequencing and liquid biopsy technologies.