Roche Molecular Systems and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have entered into a research collaboration to enable a new test for more specific prediction of a woman's risk for developing cervical cancer.
The collaboration is based on DKFZ research indicating that the relative amounts of specific spliced viral RNA molecules (RNA markers) in HPV-infected cells enable highly accurate discrimination of cervical cancer and high-grade (pre-cancer) from low-grade cervical lesions.
RMD and DKFZ have initiated the three-year collaboration in September 2010 and DKFZ is conducting research on Roche proprietary platforms, facilitating direct transition and application of any relevant findings to the Roche diagnostics product line.
Roche Molecular Diagnostics president and CEO Paul Brown said that through this collaboration, they have the opportunity to work with them to further improve screening and diagnosis of cervical cancer.
“Our hope is that this will ultimately lead to the development of a new test to make cervical cancer screening, diagnosis and grading even more accurate and specific,” Brown said.