Orion公司加强寻找癌症生物学指标的合作

 
为了寻找新型生物学指标，用于研发能够在癌症早期阶段进行筛查的检测方法，一家叫做Orion基因组学的公司开始与美国华盛顿大学的研究人员进行合作。

在这项新的合作计划中，科学家将着眼于最常见的癌症，包括肺癌、乳腺癌、宫颈癌、前列腺癌和卵巢癌，寻找能够提示这些癌症的生物学指标，以及这些指标对特定的治疗方案有何种反应。这些生物学指标，被Orion公司称为“第二密码”生物学指标，参考能够提供基因调节信息的DNA甲基化模式。这项研究使得Orion公司能够开发检测痕量甲基化的肿瘤DNA，主要是在那些很容易获得的组织例如血清、活检标本、细胞拭子。公司希望能够在3年内将这些检测方法推向市场。

Orion公司科学顾问Howard McLeod博士解释说：“我们正在寻找能够解释为何癌症患者对相同疗程的治疗反应不同的特异性分子生物学指标。我们十分乐观这些生物学指标将会极大的影响临床实践，帮助医生更加精确地为患者选择恰当的治疗方案。”

Orion肿瘤学诊断新途径包括该公司的“甲基化筛查”技术、以酶为基础的实时PCR技术，能够与目前广泛使用的检测平台相兼容。筛查检测的敏感性使得Orion公司的科学家能够测定能够提示疾病进程的单个质量的外成DNA，以研发肿瘤诊断方法，这种方法不仅能够诊断癌症还能够对疾病进展提供重要信息。

New Collaborations on Cancer Biomarkers
 
In its quest to discover novel biomarkers for the development of tests that screen for cancer at an early stage, a company called Orion Genomics (St. Louis, MO, USA) has initiated several new collaborations with researchers at Washington University (St. Louis, MO, USA).

In the new collaborations, scientists will focus on the most common cancers, including lung, breast, cervical, prostate, and ovarian cancer, seeking biomarkers that indicate the presence of cancer and how it will respond to certain therapies. These biomarkers, called Second Code biomarkers by Orion, refer to DNA methylation patterns that provide information on the regulation of genes. The research is intended to enable Orion to develop tests that detect trace amounts of methylated tumor DNA in easy-to-access tissues such as blood serum, biopsies, and cell scraps. The company expects to market the tests within three years.

“We are looking for specific molecular biomarkers that explain why patients with cancer respond differently to the same course of treatment,” explained Dr. Howard McLeod, a scientific consultant for Orion. “We are optimistic that these biomarkers will greatly impact clinical practice by enabling doctors to more accurately match therapies to patients.”

Orion’s new pipeline of oncology diagnostics will be enabled by the company’s MethylScreen technology, an enzyme-based real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology that is compatible with testing platforms widely used today. The sensitivity of the screen enables Orion’s scientists to measure unique qualities of epigenetic DNA that are indicative of disease progression, allowing for the development of oncology diagnostics that not only diagnose for cancer but provide critical information on disease progression.