2022
2022
Single-cell proteomics provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of cell function and can be applied to both disease and immune cells. IsoPlexis’ novel single-cell proteomics platform allows researcher to understand the complex roles of superpowered cells, specifically those driving key immune response and inflammation. CEO Sean Mackay joins Technology Networks to talk about how IsoPlexis is accelerating modern medicine and our understanding of complex diseases.
2022
With IsoPlexis’ groundbreaking Functional Cell Library, researchers finally have access to a unique layer of proteomic data on the wide range of superpowered immune and tumor cells uniquely identified by IsoPlexis’ Single-Cell Functional Proteomics. Driven by peer-reviewed studies and data, this novel platform helps researchers improve clinical outcomes and transform the development of advanced cell therapies.
2022
Single-Cell functional proteomics has made significant advancements in isolating and identifying the key superpowered cells driving immune responses across a wide variety of diseases and fields. With IsoPlexis’ single-cell platform, researchers are able to look past the limitations of traditional methods and transform their research to the next generation of single-cell analysis. IsoPlexis’ CEO Sean Mackay joins DeciBio to talk about IsoPlexis’ breakthrough platform and how it continues to accelerate modern medicine.
2022
After IsoPlexis launched its proteomics platform in 2018, the company saw that the most common request it received was for the ability to sequence the cells detected on the platform. Now, IsoPlexis has developed a way to do that. The company’s new Duomic instrument adds RNA sequencing to the proteomics platform, measuring functional protein and gene expression levels from the same single cell.
2021
2021
IsoPlexis also recently unveiled Duomic, a proteomics platform that can “simultaneously measure the expression levels of functional proteins and genes in the same cell,” according to a press release issued in September. Duomic builds upon the company’s proteomically driven single-cell analysis, which has been used in a number of clinical research studies where the readout was predictive of patient response attributes, especially in cell therapy and immune-oncology.
2021
PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitors have made significant advancements in treating metastatic lung cancer, but still present several challenges. Even when coupled with chemotherapy, patients may continue to experience cancer progression. The IsoPlexis platform’s functional readouts have been shown to be critical for understanding the potency and durability of therapies.
2021
IsoPlexis has completed an initial public offering that raised approximately $111 million in net proceeds toward further development of its single-cell proteomics platform and other R&D, as well as other general corporate purposes that include working capital, sales and marketing activities, funding operating expenses, and capital expenditures.
2021
Shares of IsoPlexis, a company creating tools to zoom in on the flurry of protein activity surrounding a single cell, began trading on Friday. The company aims to raise about $125 million with the IPO, which will be used to build the commercial team and advance the company’s plans to play a bigger part in the creation of precision medicine.
2021
While advancements in cancer therapeutics are occurring at breakneck speed, one thing remains certain: tumor cells are tricky. To evade immune detection and T cell–mediated killing, a tumor cell expresses an immune checkpoint ligand on its surface which binds to its respective partner on T cells, shutting off immune-mediated tumor, killing pathways. Immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies block this process from occurring, thus allowing T cells to kill tumor cells.
2021
Transcriptomics studies are critical to understanding how biological systems work. However, this technique estimates protein function but is not a direct proteomic measurement, telling researchers what might occur in a cell if it neglects post-translational modifications and protein interactions. In contrast, proteomics identifies the types and levels of proteins in the cell, and can help explain which proteins interact with each other.
2021
Detecting protein biomarkers early is key for cancer prognosis and disease prevention. Recent advancements in proteomics have helped scientists to better study and understand changes in proteins, including post-translational modifications, such as phosphorylation. By understanding and identifying changes in proteins, important cellular pathways can be discovered, which, in turn, helps alleviate some of the challenges in the search for cancer biomarkers.
2021
Clinical biomarkers are critical for the acceleration of curative medicines. The identification of these novel clinical biomarkers allows researchers to better understand complex mechanisms of immune response to diseases, facilitating the development of more effective therapeutics. Functional biomarkers can be used to predict response, identify potential effective treatments, and monitor a patient’s response to treatment. Functional biomarker discovery is leading the growth of personalized medicine, allowing researchers and clinicians to tailor treatment to a patient’s individual immune profile.
2021
IsoPlexis’ platform has been a critical tool for the development and evaluation of several CAR-T products and other immune therapies. Heterogeneity among CAR-T products makes functional immune profiling a key component of evaluating product quality. Many researchers have utilized this unique technology for product manufacturing applications, two cases of which are discussed here.
2021
Labs working on pre-clinical and clinical therapeutics research often find themselves facing numerous shortages. Staff shortages are commonplace. Getting enough funding is always a challenge. There’s never enough time. And even the physical space in the laboratory can be limiting. That’s why clinical labs can benefit enormously from choosing instruments that are multifunctional and automated.
Prime examples are two IsoPlexis systems—the IsoLight and IsoSpark. Both systems have multifaceted capabilities that cover the entire proteomics workflow in a single automated instrument. These two systems support applications for low volume highly multiplexed proteomics, single-cell secreted proteomics, and single-cell pathway omics.
Each of these applications—low volume highly multiplexed proteomics, single-cell secreted proteomics, and single-cell pathway omics—traditionally involves numerous instruments and manual workflow steps. But, when using the IsoLight/IsoSpark, the same instrument can run several different applications, all with simple workflows and minimal hands-on time. For the user, that workflow is a matter of simply loading samples onto a consumable chip that fits into the palm of your hand, loading that chip into the instrument, and walking away. The rest is fully automated.
2021
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said Tuesday it has entered into an exclusive agreement with Swiss life science tools distributor Bucher Biotec. The agreement will allow Branford, Connecticut-based IsoPlexis to expand sales of its IsoLight and IsoSpark proteomics platforms into Switzerland. The deal adds to recent agreements IsoPlexis has inked for distribution in countries including Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Spain, and Portugal.
“We are excited to partner with Bucher Biotec to further expand the reach of our unique solutions,” Peter Siesel, IsoPlexis’ chief commercial officer, said in a statement. “Our functional proteomics platform accelerates the development of personalized, curative medicines across a range of diseases and research disciplines. With this partnership, we are excited to see our usership grow even further.”
2021
A significant challenge in the treatment of cancers is the ability of some cancers to develop drug resistance, leading to poor response to treatment or recurrence after treatment. However, cutting-edge technologies now allow researchers to characterize the mechanisms of drug resistance, enabling the development of individualized combination therapies to circumvent patients’ resistance.
IsoPlexis’ unique functional proteomics platform is the emerging standard in single-cell and ultra-small volume sample proteomics. With its multi-omic approach facilitating analysis of intracellular proteins, this technology is accelerating the discovery of resistance mechanisms for improved prognosis in difficult-to-treat tumors.
While the development of drug resistance in cancers is a major therapeutic hurdle, there are tools that researchers and clinicians can use to develop effective combination therapies by identifying the mechanisms of drug resistance before it occurs. Of the existing strategies used to mitigate the risk of drug resistance, including early detection of cancer and regular therapeutic monitoring, functional single-cell proteomics is the only technology that provides deep functional phenotyping of cancer cells.
2021
Metabolomics methods are used to identify and quantify metabolites produced in response to environmental stimuli, or genetic alterations. Single-cell metabolomics methods are not limited to cancer research. They have many applications in a variety of fields and industries, including medicine, pharmaceuticals, and agriculture. For example, single-cell metabolomics may provide valuable insights for neurobiology, pharmacology, drug discovery, crop improvement, biofuels, and more.
In this infographic, you will learn about metabolomics methods and applications.
Download the full infographic, compliments of IsoPlexis.
2021
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell immunotherapies hold great promise for cancer treatment, but they are not very effective against solid tumors. Niki Spahich from The Scientist’s Creative Services team spoke with Katie McKenna, postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Malcolm Brenner at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine, about her work developing a combination CAR T cell immunotherapy and oncolytic virotherapy to treat solid tumors.
2021
One of the biggest challenges in treating cancers is their ability to rapidly develop drug tolerance. Uncovering the mechanisms behind this cell-state change is vital but difficult to obtain with traditional methods. Researchers often look to genomic markers to understand the tumor microenvironment and signaling pathways; however, functional adaptations can occur in the tumor that are unrecorded in their genomic signatures.
Download the resource to learn how single-cell proteomic pathway omics can elucidate networked pathways, courtesy of IsoPlexis.
2021
Gene editing is a powerful tool for the development of cell therapies across disciplines. Over the past several years, CRISPR has become the standard tool for gene editing; however, when developing novel therapies, using CRISPR is only part of the process. In order to evaluate the efficacy of a CRISPR-edited therapy, functional proteomics is needed, as CRISPR itself cannot confirm the function of gene edits. Functional single-cell proteomics is uniquely able to determine if cells are functioning as intended in a therapy product, while methods such as flow cytometry and surface phenotyping can only estimate function. IsoPlexis’ single-cell technology detects the highly polyfunctional cell subsets that correlate to in vivo biology in cellular therapies which are typically missed with bulk assays. Identifying these powerful functional T cell drivers can give scientists a leg up when developing complex engineered immune cell therapies.
2021
Clinical Lab Manager interviews IsoPlexis’ Chief Scientific Officer, Jing Zhou, PhD:
Jing Zhou is the Chief Scientific Officer at IsoPlexis. She is responsible for developing single-cell assays for precisely profiling the functional properties and heterogeneity of immune cells using IsoPlexis’ IsoCode proteomics platform, and for discovery of predictive biomarkers as correlates of patient outcome to immunotherapies. Since joining IsoPlexis in 2015, she has led multiple studies with various biopharma and trial center leaders. These novel findings have led to numerous presentations at prestigious scientific conferences including AACR, ASH, ASCO, SITC, FOCiS and high-impact publications in journals such as Cell, Nat Commun., Blood, Front Immunol., AJT, and JITC. Prior to IsoPlexis, she was an immunologist at the Yale School of Medicine with a good track record of 40+ scientific publications in leading journals. Read more.
2021
Clinical Lab Manager interviews IsoPlexis’ VP of Applications, Cynthia Turcotte, PhD:
Cynthia Turcotte, PhD, is VP of Applications at IsoPlexis. She directs the IsoPlexis Applications team, which provides biological support to the entire company. This includes running external collaborative experiments and pilot demonstrations, testing and validating new protocols, as well support for Innovations and R&D. She is responsible for resource management, project scheduling and delivery, training and competency, and maintaining the lab quality program.
Read more.
2021
More scientific researchers and biopharma companies are pursuing technologies that promise to offer a cell’s-eye view in order to parse their interactions with individual proteins and other cells to identify the core drivers of disease and potential remedies. IsoPlexis aims to make single-cell analysis more accessible with the recent debut of its tabletop IsoSpark instrument, designed for both large and small laboratories. The company’s hardware is capable of tagging hundreds of individual cells at once with antibody-based barcodes and classifying each by the full range of proteins they secrete. This work can help spot the previously hidden types of cells that may be overactive contributors to a particular illness or ones that may alter how the body engages with a specific medicine. “We’ve come out with papers showing that if you can measure more of these proteins concurrently with each single cell, you can start to resolve and treat the aberrant signaling pathways that were engaged,” Mackay said. “What we hope to do is continue to popularize the need to look at the phosphoproteome, because the early data is so promising.” What makes IsoPlexis fierce: The company’s IsoSpark and larger IsoSpark Duo launched last November, joining its slightly larger sibling, the IsoLight proteomics hub, which had been serving more established academic research centers and biopharma companies. This includes Lonza, through a partnership to provide quality analytics for cell therapies, and Yale University, to profile immune system biomarkers for COVID-19 severity.
2021
It’s no secret that the medtech industry’s response to COVID-19 has been fierce, innovative and dynamic. The world cried out for tests to track the infection, technology to develop treatments, ventilators to help people breathe and the machinery to bring vaccines to millions. At the same time, many companies rearranged their efforts to address the new threat, while all were forced to adapt to its effects: lockdowns closed laboratories, and offices became chatrooms. Each member of this year’s class of Fierce 15 stands out in a different way, but they all overcame a year of unforgettable obstacles, making each of their successes that much more significant. Even more significant, their advancements all have the potential to deliver changes in care that will outlast this pandemic. “There’s always more work to do, but each advancement in the medtech industry makes those hills easier to climb—for physicians, clinicians, treatment developers and above all, for patients— because any success attained in this field rarely remains with the company.” — Conor Hale
2021
Targeted therapies have made a big splash in the cancer therapeutics field. However, many cancers fail to respond to these treatments, or patients experience the return of their regressed tumors. These problems arise because certain cells within a tumor undergo cell-state changes that promote drug tolerance. To study this process, researchers employ sophisticated multi-omic technologies to identify cells responsible for drug tolerance and to develop strategies for personalized medicine. Previous methods for studying drug tolerance relied on bulk analyses of heterogeneous cell samples; however, cell state changes do not occur uniformly within a population. Because uncommon biomarkers are diluted by more prevalent molecules, these experiments insufficiently detected the cellular causes of drug tolerance. To better identify functional adaptations leading to drug tolerance, researchers now analyze tumor cells at the single-cell level using multi-omic approaches. Researchers can identify cell states using IsoPlexis’ multi-omic energy state technology with the Single Cell Metabolome solution panel, which simultaneously captures phosphoproteins and metabolites from single cells.
2021
“The exciting thing about what we’re doing is the convergence between single-cell biology and proteomics for the first time,” says Mackay of the work at IsoPlexis. The company, which developed the IsoLight single-cell proteomics system, recently launched the IsoSpark and IsoSpark Duo systems. The systems can be used for applications such as immune landscaping, intracellular signaling, OMICs, and high-plex automated immune assays. “We are an engineering company that thinks of the space-time continuum in the context of biology, specifically in the single cell,” notes Mackay. Essentially, IsoPlexis is developing technology to enable explorations of the secretome, phoshoproteome, and the metabolome that will help “connect the dots” in biology. “This approach,” Mackay insists, “has the potential to unlock breakthroughs in the clinic such as next-generation biomarkers.”
2021
Today, the Business Intelligence Group named seven executives, 52 companies, and 137 products as leaders and winners of the 2021 BIG Innovation Awards. This annual business awards program recognizes organizations, products, and people that are bringing new ideas to life in innovative ways. IsoPlexis’ IsoSpark was one of the winners in the Technology category. Organizations from across the globe submitted their recent innovations for consideration in the BIG Innovation Awards. Nominations were judged by a select group of business leaders and executives who volunteered their time and expertise to score submissions.
2021
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said today it has closed a $135 million Series D financing. The round consists of $85 million in equity securities and a $50 million credit facility and was led by Perceptive Advisors, with participation from other new investors including Ally Bridge Group, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, as well as other existing investors. The Branford, Connecticut-based company said it will use the proceeds to expand its global commercial and R&D teams, increase operational capacity to meet growing demand, and accelerate product development. “With more than 100 systems placed and a strong team of over 200 employees, we have laid an incredibly strong foundation for future growth at the convergence of single-cell biology, proteomics, and multi-omics,” IsoPlexis Co-founder and CEO Sean MacKay said in a statement. “We look forward to deploying this capital to accelerate our commercial efforts as we work to leverage our powerful biology to impact the future of advanced medicines.”
2020
2020
As single-cell analysis technologies continue their rapid development—promising a cell’s-eye view of protein interactions and signaling—IsoPlexis hopes to establish itself as a provider of next-generation biology tools with $135 million in new financing. IsoPlexis’ immediate plans are to expand its global sales and customer support teams, increase its commercial capacity and grow its R&D staff as it builds out its product development strategy, according to co-founder and CEO Sean Mackay. Last November, the company debuted its IsoSpark instrument, with a tabletop footprint that aims to provide single-cell proteomics capabilities to large and small laboratories alike. IsoPlexis said it plans to begin shipments this month. “The major use of proceeds is to be able to meet the demand in the right places, for cancer immunology, cell and gene therapy and COVID,” Mackay said in an interview with Fierce Medtech. “The second use of proceeds is really around the product road map, where we have in-licensed things to interrogate more aspects of single-cell biology, which includes the phospho-proteome,” he added, referring to the body’s wide range of secreted proteins used to transmit messages to other cells and coordinate immune responses.
2020
The Single-Cell Intracellular Proteome solution from IsoPlexis grew out of several labs at Caltech, all seeking better ways to monitor protein-protein interactions
in cancer cells with the goal of developing targeted treatments. With traditional methods such as Western blot, mass spectrometry, and flow cytometry, only a couple of protein types can be tracked at a given time. With Isoplexis’s system, launched in July, researchers can monitor 30 or more protein pathways, with results available on the same day. With previous technology, phosphorylation was used to identify the function of the individual proteins, with no insight as to how they work together. The Single-Cell Intracellular Proteome reveals the function the same way, but is also able to provide the context of entire protein signaling pathways, uncovering how the network operates as a whole. Understanding the entire network of cellular pathways allows researchers to better understand the downstream effects of aberrant cells, says Sean Mackay, CEO and cofounder of IsoPlexis. In cancers, he adds, this approach helps evaluate the efficacy of targeted treatments such as antibody therapies or small-molecule drugs.
2020
Clinical biomarkers are critical for the acceleration of curative medicines. The identification of these novel clinical biomarkers allows researchers to better understand complex mechanisms of immune response to diseases, facilitating the development of more effective therapeutics. Functional biomarkers can be used to predict response, identify potential effective treatments, and monitor a patient’s response to treatment. Functional biomarker discovery is leading the growth of personalized medicine, allowing researchers and clinicians to tailor treatment to a patient’s individual immune profile. IsoPlexis has the ability to detect rare cell subset with superpowers (highly functional cells) which have been proven to be highly predictive biomarkers in studies across many different research areas. This uniquely predictive functional biomarker is guiding the development of effective therapeutics for cancers, inflammation, and infectious diseases, all on an automated platform that harnesses the most powerful cells to personalize immune medicine.
2020
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis is looking to expand its market reach with the launch of a lower-priced, smaller-footprint platform and new assay capabilities. The company also continues to move its technology into the clinic, having identified a blood-based biomarker of response to immunotherapy in melanoma that researchers presented on at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) annual meeting this month. The IsoSpark has an 18-inch footprint and can run four chips at a time compared to eight chips simultaneously for the IsoLight system. Mackay added that the platform is targeted to the academic and biotech markets, which he said “prefer having more modular, personalized lab systems.” IsoPlexis also launched this month the IsoSpark Duo, which is more targeted to the IsoLight user base, offering the same level of throughput but increased flexibility in that it can run two different sets of chips simultaneously, allowing researchers to profile different cell types in the same experiment.
2020
Researchers urgently need new approaches for functional immune profiling in order to accelerate discovery and development of curative medicines. The newest innovations from IsoPlexis make functional proteomics widely accessible to virtually every laboratory, speeding development of personalized, curative medicines.
Now the analytic prowess IsoPlexis is known for is available in three different formats, all fully automated: the IsoSpark, IsoLight, and IsoSpark Duo. These systems detect the rare subsets of highly functional superpowered cells through measuring true function of the full range of cytokines, chemokines, and other proteins. All three systems leverage the same uniquely innovative applications in functional immune profiling, intracellular signaling omics, and high-plex automated immunoassays, accelerating therapeutic development.
2020
IsoPlexis’ functional proteomics is changing how the world thinks about immune cell characterization, showing how harnessing the most powerful cells is changing immune medicine. The IsoSpark, a personalized proteomics system for any laboratory, makes unique functional proteomics accessible to every lab, providing an integrated and flexible solution for accelerating curative medicines. The IsoSpark, the IsoLight, and the IsoSpark Duo, along with functional immune landscaping, intracellular signaling omics, and high-plex automated immunoassays are the latest innovations from IsoPlexis. The IsoSpark, introduced on November 11th, is currently available for pre-order in North America and Europe with shipping planned for January 2021.
2020
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said Thursday that it is partnering with Yale University to develop assays for COVID-19 using the company’s IsoLight system. According to the company, the partners aim to identify markers of patient immune response to the virus that could be used to inform development of therapies and vaccines for the disease.
2020
Single-cell analysis is a relatively new technology that has revolutionized the ability of researchers to study variation within a population of cells (e.g. organs, tissues, and cell cultures). IsoPlexis’ single-cell proteomics, for example, has allowed researchers to identify the specific cytokines each single cell is secreting to identify highly functional subsets of cells that can accelerate the development of vaccines and therapeutics. The latest advance in the field of single-cell analysis is single-cell multi-omics—just last year, Nature Methods chose it as their Method of the Year “for its great impact in revealing cell functions, discovering relationships across ‘omes, and recording dynamic biological events.” IsoPlexis’ technology allows researchers to perform deep functional multi-omic analyses on the secretome, phosphoproteome, and metabolome at single-cell and population resolution, using very small sample sizes, on a single piece of equipment. As sequencing technologies continue to advance, the IsoLight proteomics hub makes it possible to profile cells in multiple modalities on a single system—an advance that is making waves in cancer, infectious disease research, and beyond.
2020
Cancer cells develop resistance to targeted therapies, and their inherent functional heterogeneity makes it difficult for researchers to understand and characterize these resistance mechanisms. IsoPlexis’ single-cell proteomics is helping researchers overcome resistance to targeted inhibitors, leading to better strategies and combination therapies. In a recent Nature Communications article, James Heath’s team from the California Institute of Technology described using predictive single-cell intracellular proteomics and metabolomics to identify how a cancer cell line transitions to a final drug-resistant state via two distinct trajectories. Using IsoPlexis’ proteomic barcoding technology, the researchers characterized cellular heterogeneity within cell populations at different timepoints and quantitatively connected multiple timepoints to characterize dynamic heterogeneity on an individual cell level. Cellular state changes became prominent around day 3, as most probed analytes exhibited a sharp but transitory increase in variance. Understanding these functional adaptations allowed the team to predict and develop an effective therapeutic combination to overcome this adaptive resistance.
2020
IsoPlexis said on Tuesday that it has signed an exclusive agreement with Medquest to distribute IsoPlexis’ products in Singapore and Malaysia. “Our IsoLight platform provides a wide range of applications across numerous disease areas and we are excited for our systems to generate impactful data at leading pharmaceutical and life science institutions in Singapore and Malaysia,” IsoPlexis CEO Sean Mackay said in a statement. Last week, IsoPlexis said that Switzerland-based Lonza will use the IsoLight platform for functional quality analytics for cell therapy products produced on Lonza’s automated cell manufacturing platform. Also in August, IsoPlexis said it is partnering with researchers at Columbia University to study immune response in COVID-19 patients.
2020
Challenges remain in cell therapy manufacturing optimization and scalability, especially when developing autologous therapies. In a recent GEN webinar, Matthew Hewitt, PhD, head of R&D (a.i.) and clinical development, personalized medicine at Lonza, and Stacey Willard, PhD, director of product management at IsoPlexis, provided an overview of the Cocoon™ cell therapy manufacturing platform and the IsoLight™ single-cell proteomics system along with data from case studies.
Combining the IsoLight system with the Cocoon platform allows quantification of the true functional biology of the cell product. Although other analytic approaches provide rich data, they do not reveal single cell functional detail, which facilitates better predictions of potency, durability, and adverse effects.
“This collaboration between Lonza and IsoPlexis highlights the evolution of cell therapy manufacturing. As we continue to scale the manufacturing of cell therapies, it will be critical to characterize the quality and performance of these products with technologies such as IsoPlexis’ IsoLight,” said Hewitt.
2020
PhenoVista Biosciences, a California-based company with an unmatched combination of imaging expertise, assay development experience, and the latest technologies and data analysis capabilities, was selected as a Certified Service Provider of IsoPlexis’ products. PhenoVista can now offer the full array of IsoPlexis’ IsoCode and CodePlex assays, single-cell and ultra-small sample volume solutions which accelerate workflows and are of critical use in the study of cancer immunology, infectious diseases, inflammation, vaccine development, and cell and gene therapy research. “We are excited to have named PhenoVista a Certified Service Provider for the IsoPlexis platform,” said Sean Mackay, Chief Executive Officer of IsoPlexis. “We look forward to our unique single-cell proteomics platform being widely accessible through PhenoVista, enabling its use in leading research institutions at the forefront of scientific discovery.”
2020
IsoPlexis, which markets single-cell functional proteomics products, is collaborating with Lonza, a CDMO, to use IsoPlexis’ IsoLight platform for cell and gene therapy manufacturing. The IsoLight will provide quality analytics for cell therapy products generated on Lonza’s Cocoon, an automated, highly flexible cell therapy manufacturing platform, according to Sean Mackay, CEO of IsoPlexis.
The Cocoon allows for centralized and decentralized manufacturing of novel cell therapies, and the IsoLight provides a solution for the functional characterization of the cell therapy product, to ensure correlative functional potency of the manufactured cell product, continues Mackay.
“This collaboration between Lonza and IsoPlexis highlights the evolution of cell therapy manufacturing,” notes Matthew Hewitt, PhD, Head of Clinical Development and Personalized Medicine at Lonza. “As we continue to scale the manufacturing of cell therapies, it will be critical to characterize the quality and performance of these products with technologies such as IsoPlexis’ IsoLight.”
2020
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said today that it is partnering with researchers at the Department of Medicine at Columbia University to study the immune response in COVID-19 patients. The Branford, Connecticut-based company said it plans to use its single-cell proteomics platform to identify drivers of durable and protective immune responses to the virus, with the ultimate goal of using that information to inform therapeutics development.
2020
Single-cell analysis sheds light on immune response to COVID-19 infection, enables the rapid discovery of antibody leads, and points to ways to get ahead of future pandemics. Proteomic analysis can also fill in critical gaps concerning cell type and function. A Seattle-based research consortium headed by the Swedish Medical Center, the Institute for Systems Biology and Merck is also applying a host of multi-omic analytical techniques to blood specimens collected from patients with COVID-19, including a platform developed by IsoPlexis that employs microchip-based immunoassays to profile secreted cytokines and other signaling molecules from individual immune cells. “It basically allows you to perform 35-plex analysis of cytokine secretion from viable single cells,” says James Heath, president of the Institute for Systems Biology and cofounder of IsoPlexis.
2020
FlowMetric Life Sciences, Inc., a global leader in Flow Cytometry services, and IsoPlexis, the leader in functional single-cell proteomics, announce FlowMetric as a Certified Service Provider of the IsoPlexis technology. This certification was awarded after FlowMetric met the rigorous training and testing requirements set out by IsoPlexis. FlowMetric can now provide Single-Cell Functional Proteomic services to its Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology customers to complement its decade-long expertise in developing and validating multi-parameter Flow Cytometry-based approaches for drug development. FlowMetric is the only Contract Research Organization (CRO) on the East Coast to offer the menu of IsoPlexis’ IsoCode & CodePlex assays for the study of cancer immunology, inflammation, vaccine development, and cell and gene therapy research. The IsoPlexis technology provides comprehensive workflows that combine proprietary content and bioinformatic solutions to enable large data sets to be acquired from small sample volumes.
2020
Automate your entire workflow with one system. The IsoLight is a hub for comprehensive functional profiling of each cell type across a large assay menu of single-cell chip and software products, such as the newly released CodePlex Secretome solution, which enables quick and cost-efficient population assays and can selectively run 8 samples per chip in “MacroChambers” across 8 chips on a single run. Run an entire multiplexed ELISA workflow in a completely automated and hands-off manner. Just add your sample and walk away, achieving fully analyzed data on the same day. No additional equipment is needed. That means no washing and incubation stations, no centrifuge, no vortexer, and no plate reader. All of your proteomic needs are integrated into the completely automated IsoLight system.
2020
For years, the relative abundance of particular proteins has been estimated from mRNAs in bulk tissue samples. Single-cell transcriptomics allowed a more pinpointed inference of protein levels based on detected RNA transcripts. But now the nascent field of single-cell proteomics promises direct measurements of the proteins within or secreted from individual cells. Here is a look at the emerging field of single-cell proteomics and recent applications of its technologies to combating SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
IsoPlexis offers the IsoLight platform for highly multiplexed single-cell proteomics of over 30 cytokines released from individual cells. Known as functional phenotyping, the results of IsoPlexis’s Single-Cell Secretome solution allow researchers to take proteomic snapshots of individual immune cells by measuring the many cytokines they secrete.
Applications of their technology are helping to predict which patients might respond to particular therapies for blood and solid tumor cancers as well as infectious disease, says Sean Mackay, co-founder and CEO of IsoPlexis. “Our technology allows clinical researchers to uniquely pinpoint each single cell’s functional phenotype that influences the course of therapy, and identifying these cell subsets has helped predict durable and quality immune response correlating to outcome preclinically and in the clinic,” he says.
2020
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said Tuesday that it has received a $2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
The Phase 2 grant is for work the company is doing to analyze the proteomic responses of trafficking leukocytes in patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions.
IsoPlexis is developing assays on its IsoLight system for detecting the inflammatory immune response generated by cells including peripheral monocytes, highly polyfunctional secretomic T cells, and microglia and exploring whether these profiles could be used for diagnosing and monitoring inflammatory neurodegenerative diseases.
2020
Vaccine development can be daunting. The overarching goal to create long-lasting immune protection requires an in-depth understanding of the immune system’s response to an infectious agent, immune monitoring to determine and predict the building of the protective response, as well as cytokine-level monitoring for potential toxicities related to cytokine storms.
GEN spoke to five leading researchers to hear their views and strategies on infectious disease research and vaccine development.
2020
Merck & Co. has begun working with the non-profit Institute for Systems Biology and a consortium of companies to investigate the molecular mechanisms behind the novel coronavirus, in a bid to identify new targets for medicines and vaccines. Late last month, the ISB launched a study with health workers from Swedish Medical Center, also based in the institute’s hometown of Seattle, to explore why certain COVID-19 patients die or require intensive care while others may show no symptoms at all. Both the ISB and Swedish are part of the Providence St. Joseph Health network.
Other participants in the study include health workers within Providence St. Joseph Health and the Swedish Medical System, as well as collaborators from Stanford University, IsoPlexis, Adaptive Biotechnologies, 10x Genomics, Metabolon and others.
Merck will provide research funding and work with ISB researchers to find targets for potential interventions, including drugs, antibody therapies and vaccines. The study will initially analyze samples from 200 patients with the potential to expand to 300.
2020
In recent years, developments in single cell and single molecule techniques have allowed proteomics researchers to characterize the body’s immune response with improved depth and resolution.
Much of this research has been focused on immuno-oncology, but as the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak has turned into a global pandemic, a number of companies and researchers in this space have turned their attention to better understanding how patients’ immune systems respond to the virus.
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis has to date largely marketed its IsoLight platform to researchers doing work on cancer immunotherapy, where it has proved useful for assessing immune cell cytokine production.
Given the apparently important role of overactive cytokine production, the so-called cytokine storm, in COVID-19 deaths, the company is now working with researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle to analyze the cytokine production of immune cells taken from COVID-19 patients.
2020
Functional cellular proteomics platform developer IsoPlexis and the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) said today they will partner to study COVID-19 by mapping functional immune responses at the single cell level. The partners said they plan to carry out research on immune cells from people who have been diagnosed with, or recovered from, COVID-19. IsoPlexis’ single cell functional proteomics platform will be applied on a variety of immune cell types, including various T cells and myeloid cells, in order to map the overall response to the virus. According to IsoPlexis, uncovering functional immune responses using its technologies has led to key breakthroughs in therapies that harness the immune system across disease areas. “Global effort and partnerships are needed to reach an accelerated understanding of COVID-19,” added ISB president and professor James R. Heath, PhD. Speaking with GEN last year, Heath discussed how single-cell functional analyses accelerated development of CAR-T therapies. The analysis of CAR-T cells prior to infusion, he noted, can help researchers anticipate patient response, which also provides feedback usable in the process of manufacturing cells; “You want to control the manufacturing process to optimize the tumor killing properties of the T-cells, while also minimizing factors such as T cell exhaustion. “These single-cell functional analyses have been pretty good across the board at differentiating responders from non-responders, both during the course of therapy and, in some published cases, in terms of analyzing CAR-T-cell products before they are even infused into the patient,” Heath observed. “There are not many other metrics that have yet emerged that give you that type of feedback.”
2020
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis is collaborating with researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle to look at the immune response in patients who have been diagnosed or recovered from COVID-19, with the goal of better understanding what factors are involved in better and worse outcomes. The company’s IsoLight platform is capable of measuring dozens of proteins in single cells and has found a niche within cancer immunotherapy where researchers are using it to look at immune cell cytokine production. The company plans to similarly analyze the cytokine production profiles of immune cells taken from COVID-19 patients, said Sean Mackay, the company’s co-founder and CEO. IsoPlexis also plans to work with the ISB to make bulk measurements of cytokines secreted by patient immune cells, with the goal of better understanding which people may be more susceptible to the “cytokine storm” phenomenon where an overactive immune response causes severe illness or death in certain patients.
2020
IsoPlexis has partnered with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) to map functional immune response to COVID-19 at the single-cell level. The group will use IsoPlexis’ single-cell functional platform to analyze immune cells from individuals who have been diagnosed or recovered from COVID-19. The team aims to examine a variety of immune cell types—including various T cells and myeloid cells—to put together a map of the overall response. “Through our unique functional analysis of each cell, we can unlock further understanding of how COVID-19 interacts with the immune system,” Sean Mackay, CEO and cofounder of IsoPlexis, said in a statement. “Cellular immune signatures based on cytokines may be key in understanding and predicting response, and also how to mitigate disease progression.”
2020
IsoPlexis has released two new products for use with its IsoLight cellular proteomics instrument. CodePlex Secretome is a fully automated approach to obtaining highly multiplexed bulk cytokine data that requires five minutes of hands-on time for sample loading. CodePlex Secretome multiplexes more than 30 cytokines, and is modular so users can simultaneously examine as few as eight samples or as many as 64. The new Single-Cell Innate & Myeloid solution detects the functional single-cell differences from innate and myeloid cells by identifying what each cell secretes in a highly multiplexed (32-plus cytokines) manner to reveal the sources of cellular difference through functional phenotyping. It joins other IsoLight single-cell chip applications which allow researchers to visualize single-cell-level data and pinpoint biological drivers.
2020
Unable to be detected by conventional technologies, cellular functional heterogeneity leads to differences in patient response and disease progression. Filling this gap, IsoPlexis’ single-cell functional proteomics is allowing researchers to characterize the full range of extracellular functions (32+ cytokines) per single cell. By exploring, understanding, and characterizing cells based on function, researchers can accelerate therapeutic development by revealing new phenotypes that specifically correlate to individual disease or response states.
2020
In a recent study led by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, proteomics firm IsoPlexis demonstrated the capabilities of its expanded single-cell analysis platform. In the work, which was detailed in a paper published last month in Nature Communications, scientists used the company’s platform to profile the cytokines produced by both T cells and natural killer (NK) cells in the blood of melanoma patients receiving adoptive cell transfer (ACT) therapy. IsoPlexis is currently expanding its offerings to target a variety of different immune cell types, said Sean Mackay, the company’s co-founder and CEO. From IsoPlexis’ perspective, the analysis of NK cells is significant in that it demonstrates the ability of its platform to look beyond T cells and to effectively analyze NK cells circulating in patient blood. “This is the first time that has been published,” Mackay said, adding that it marks an important step for the company’s efforts to move into cancer immunology more broadly. The NK cell analysis used the same cytokine chip that IsoPlexis has offered for T cell research. However, Mackay said the company is developing new cytokine chips specific for macrophages and monocytes that will better address those cells’ specific cytokine repertoires. The company is also releasing this quarter a panel aimed at bulk cell analysis of cytokines. While IsoPlexis has focused primarily on single-cell analysis, Mackay said it has received requests from customers interested in doing comparisons of single-cell and bulk cytokine profiles.
2020
Nektar Therapeutics today announced the publication of preclinical data on its lead immuno-oncology candidate, NKTR-214, bempegaldesleukin (bempeg) in two manuscripts in Nature Communications. Bempeg is an investigational CD122-preferential interleukin-2 (IL-2) pathway agonist designed to provide activation and proliferation of cancer-killing immune cells, known as CD8+ effector T cells and natural killer (NK) cells. The published data demonstrate that bempeg, in combination with immune-based therapies including checkpoint inhibition (CPI), antigen-specific vaccination and adoptive cell transfer (ACT) therapy, enhanced T-cell mediated tumor control by selectively expanding effector T cells (Teffs) over T regulatory cells (Tregs) in the tumor microenvironment. In the second manuscript, published this week in Nature Communications, a research team led by Antoni Ribas, Ph.D. at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center evaluated bempeg in combination with adoptively transferred T cell therapy (ACT) in melanoma models. The studies found ACT therapy supported by bempeg increases the proliferation, homing and persistence of anti-tumor T cells compared to ACT with IL-2, resulting in superior antitumor activity in the B16 melanoma model.
2020
Therapies that entail removing immune cells from patients and engineering them to recognize and fight cancer have revolutionized the treatment of some blood cancers, but they’ve proven difficult to translate to other tumor types. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center believe they’ve hit upon a combination treatment that could help expand the use of cell therapy. The UCLA team is planning future studies to better understand how signaling pathways contribute to the anti-cancer effects they observed in mice given the T-cell combination therapy, they wrote in the study. The synergy they’ve seen so far, they said, “suggests that in patients with cancer, NKTR-214-containing regimens could increase tumor control without exacerbating systemic inflammation.
2020
In a January 2020 Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News webinar, Leonardo Ferreira, PhD, Postdoctoral Scholar and Jeffrey G. Klein Family Diabetes Fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, and Jonathan Chen, technology co-inventor at IsoPlexis, discussed CAR Tregs and how the IsoPlexis IsoLight single-cell functional proteomics system is crucial in the informed design and development of this next generation of cell therapies. To view the on demand webinar, visit here.
2020
The last decade was an eventful one for proteomics as the field saw a number of advances ranging from new workflows and applications to improvements in instrumentation and bioinformatic innovations. Immunoassay-based methods aimed at measuring relatively large numbers of proteins at the single-cell level also saw significant advances during the decade. This was particularly true on the commercial side, with companies including Fluidigm, NanoString Technologies, IsoPlexis, Akoya Biosciences, Zellkraftwerk, IonPath, and Mission Bio launching tools for single-cell protein analysis during the last decade.
2020
After two-plus decades spent struggling to drive experiment run times down to more manageable levels, a sense emerged this year within the field that this challenge had at last been met. Single-cell proteomic technologies also saw continued growth with a number of new developments in what is becoming an increasingly crowded field. Branford, Connecticut-based IsoPlexis closed a $25 million Series C round that it is using to launch several new single-cell protein assays as well as expand its operations across the US, Europe, and Asia.
2020
Single-cell functional proteomics platform developer IsoPlexis announced this week it has raised an additional $20 million in a Series C round, capital that will enable the company to continue the global expansion of its flagship IsoLight single-cell proteomic analysis platform. According to the company, its technology has been used in a number of different settings including precision drug discovery and biomarker discovery in oncology, to identify proteomic differences that are often undetectable via other methods.
2020
IsoPlexis said today that it has raised an additional $20 million as part of its Series C financing. That follows the $25 million the company announced in May 2019, bringing the total figure for the round to $45 million. The company said it plans to use the funds to drive commercialization of its IsoLight single-cell proteomic system. IsoPlexis has 130 employees and recently expanded its presence throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.
2019
2019
Single-cell proteomics firm IsoPlexis said today it has received a $2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center. The grant will fund development of methods using the company’s IsoLight system to study protein signaling pathways in single tumor cells, allowing for improved analysis of cancer signaling and tumor heterogeneity.
2019
IsoPlexis reported today that it has launched IsoSpeak software for automated on-site analysis and advanced, functional, single-cell mapping. “People see well-published data showing that proteomics can confirm how each sample is performing. This information is critical for developing immunotherapy applications. Until today, most technologies for gathering this data involved much complexity and great difficulty,” explains Mackay. “There are thousands of data points per sample which, in theory, require a lot of informatics and computers to put the data together. Our software takes all that information and those multi-data points and condenses it in your hand in an easy-to-use fashion. Getting the data is quick, and once the run is done, all those data visualizations are able to be manipulated by users on the same day.”
2019
IsoPlexis also expanded its applications with new IsoCode Chip products, including the murine cell Single Cell Polyfunctional Strength solution to open up a variety of previously published insights in the pre-clinical realm. Additionally, the Single Cell Polyfunctional Inflammation solution helps discover and target important inflammatory cell types, in high need areas like auto-immune disease, neuro-inflammation, and immune related adverse events.
2019
We explore how automated cell-manufacturing platforms, such as the Miltenyi Biotec CliniMACS Prodigy®, and single-cell technology from IsoPlexis can be used to produce and assess the functional biology of next generation cell therapy products. With a deeper understanding of cellular function by characterizing the functional cytokines from each single cell, scientists can analyze how the CAR-T cells are likely to impact the immune system, which can translate to how the therapy would affect patient outcome.
2019
An urgent need exists for novel detection strategies to better understand mechanistic function and efficacy at the single-cell level in a way that correlates to clinical outcomes. Population level studies do not provide the necessary insight into immune response heterogeneity at the single-cell level. IsoPlexis’ single-cell proteomics systems address this challenge by connecting each immune cell to the many cytokines they secrete, which orchestrate the immune system.
2019
There are no currently well-defined methods to predict or characterize adverse effects, such as severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS) or neurotoxicity. Although circulating cytokine levels in blood are monitored, often that is too late, and drugs, such as IL-6, cannot prevent the patient’s death. In addition, the CAR T-cell infusion product may contain some cells with bizarre functions. IsoPlexis’ technology can comprehensively evaluate the cells with almost no bias, so you get a full portrait of the whole infusion product, even small subsets of the cells with bizarre functions.
2019
Single-cell suspensions don’t present spatial context like needle biopsies do, but the cytokines each individual cell produces still tell a compelling story. For example, cytokine secretion profiles correlate with, and can help predict, clinical outcomes in immunotherapy, said Will Singleterry, PhD, director of business development at IsoPlexis. To back this assertion, he presented data from the company’s many collaborations.
2019
Researchers and clinicians urgently need new approaches to understand the functional profile of cell therapy products to accelerate discovery and development, to achieve manufacturing consistency, and to predict which patients will derive the most value from these drugs while minimizing side-effects. IsoPlexis’ Polyfunctional Strength Index (PSI™) can be utilized to address these challenges, in particular to provide metrics that uniquely relate the CAR-T cell product response to in vivo preclinical and clinical outcome measures.
2019
Unlike a small molecule or antibody that always has the same structure, each time an autologous cell therapy is developed the starting material comes from a different patient, making it virtually impossible to reproducibly develop an identical “drug”. Having the ability to drive better outcomes by profiling the complete function of each cell would be a significant advantage for bioengineers—a challenge the IsoPlexis single-cell proteomic system has been designed to address.
2019
James Heath, PhD., is president and professor at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle. He also has the position of Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA, and he has directed the NCI-funded NSB Cancer Center since 2005. GEN recently spoke with him on current issues and future trends regarding CAR T-cell therapeutics.
2019
There is an urgent need to characterize the potency and efficacy of CRISPR-Cas9-modified inducible pluripotent stem cell-derived natural killer cells for preclinical cancer immunotherapy research. IsoPlexis’ single-cell proteomics system addresses this challenge by connecting each immune cell to cytokine secretion and thereby correlating them to in vivo outcome across a range of disease areas.
2018
2018
In this issue of Blood, report that the heterogeneity of personalized chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has limited the ability to identify product attributes that enhance patient outcomes, but they have showed that by using single-cell analyses, heterogeneity may actually improve clinical outcomes. Single-cell polyfunctional analyses provide a measure of product efficacy that can be used to identify patients likely to respond to treatment and those likely to develop toxicities.
2018
As IsoPlexis prepares to take its production to the next level in 2018, two science news publications have honored the company for technology that tailors optimum treatments for cancer patients. The Scientist magazine named the company’s IsoCode chip and IsoLight platform, an all-in-one system that reads the individual cells of tumors, as the Top Innovation of 2017. One week later, FierceBiotech named the same system the 2017 Fierce Innovation Award for Technology Innovation.
2018
The work was part of a larger study looking at the effectiveness of ACT in combination with the cytokine agonist NKTR-214. The study, led by Antoni Ribas, director of the tumor immunology program at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, found that the ACT-NKTR-214 combination improved the induction of cytotoxic T cells and increased their polyfunctionality, indicating that addition of NKTR-214 could boost the performance of ACT. NKTR-214 is produced by San Francisco-based biopharma company Nektar Therapeutics, which also participated in the study. “The finding in a preclinical model that the IsoPlexis assay can detect a remarkable increase in polyfunctionality in tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes recovered from tumors of mice treated with NKTR-214 compared to IL-2 is the most conclusive data we have obtained in this model system,” said Ribas.
2018
Research recently published in the journal Blood — conducted in a collaborative effort with Kite Pharma, a Gilead company — demonstrates a significant association between the functionality of an anti-CD19 CAR-T cell product before treatment, as defined by IsoPlexis’ Polyfunctional Strength Index (PSI), and the objective response in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). “The results highlight the potential to predict whether cancer patients will respond to CAR-T cell therapy before treatment, as well as to improve both pre-infusion product potency testing and guide cell product optimization.”
2017
2017
“I am extremely honored to assume the position of president of ISB. It is also tremendously humbling to follow in Lee Hood’s footsteps. Lee is a giant of science, and he has changed the face of modern biology. Through scholarship, innovation, and an outstanding faculty, he has also built ISB into the world leader of systems biology. I can’t wait to begin working with ISB faculty to help build an ISB for the future.”
2017
As described in the abstract of this clinical biomarkers presentation, the IsoCode platform uncovered that polyfunctional anti-CD19 CAR T cells determined by single-cell multiplex proteomics associated with clinical activity in patients with advanced non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The single-cell Polyfunctional Strength Index (PSI) of patient CAR T cells, measured on the IsoCode platform, showed a statistically significant association with objective response to CAR T therapy.
2017
US-based biotech firm IsoPlexis has presented findings from research using the company’s precision engineering platform, called IsoCode. The data show the potential to predict whether cancer patients will respond to CAR-T cell therapy prior to treatment, as well as to improve both pre-infusion potency testing and cell product design.
2017
“Through this research, we were able to highlight the important role a functionally versatile subpopulation of CAR T cells may play in the fight against cancer, leading to new ways to characterize and optimize T-cell products,” Adrian Bot, MD, Kite’s vice president, Translational Medicine, said in a statement. “These insights were made possible by using the IsoPlexis technology.”
2017
The licensing deals, mergers and acquisitions, and excitement at events such as ASCO in the last couple of years, have of course come in combination with the impressive data that clinical trials are yielding, notes Sean Mackay, the chief executive of IsoPlexis. Its partners include the cancer immunotherapy specialist, Kite Pharma. “The reason there is such a high potential is rooted in the data,” Mr Mackay says.
2017
Omics firm IsoPlexis is developing an automated version of its single-cell analysis platform for use in large clinical trials of CAR-T therapies for blood cancers. The Branford, Connecticut-based company is using a $1.8 million grant it received this summer from the National Cancer Institute’s Small Business Innovation Research program to fund development of the automated system.
2017
A Branford life sciences company is working to take the guesswork out of cancer treatments with technology that may predict how patients will respond to drugs before being exposed to them. IsoPlexis is developing a system that analyzes patients’ tumors cell by cell to determine how effective or toxic a treatment would be and to help guide doctors’ decisions about mixing different cancer therapies.
2017
This new single-cell technology allows researchers to characterize cells based on the proteins they secrete—as many as 42 different cytokines, chemokines, and other molecule types at once. “The IsoLight single-cell technology, with its ease-of-use, has the potential to impact cancer research for both biomarker discovery and patient monitoring.”
2017
The Life Sciences Innovation Report showcases outstanding innovation that is driving improvements and transforming the industry. “Our ability to measure a lot more functional data per individual patient immune cell has provided a pathway to understanding how immunotherapy works, said Sean Mackay, Co-Founder and CEO of IsoPlexis. Mackay said there are three elements that make IsoPlexis fierce; its thought leadership in technology that stems from the company’s scientific founders and advisory board; a very strong technology platform; and its employees. “All of those elements allow us to maintain our ferocity.”
2017
A UCLA study in collaboration with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) shows that skin cancer cells could be chemically changed from within to reflexively alter gene expression patterns and intracellular pathways, which allows the cells to become resistant to targeted drugs. The UCLA-Caltech team conducted functional proteomics analysis of single melanoma cells, using a microfluidic single-cell barcode “lab on a chip” to determine how cellular responses varied to BRAF inhibitors.
2016
2016
Researchers at this Center have applied single cell proteomics studies towards understanding patient responses to immunotherapy in clinical trials. This technology has been translated into the commercial sector for cancer immunotherapy applications by IsoPlexis, a company co-founded by former NSBCC postdoc Dr. Rong Fan (now on the faculty at Yale), and with scientific support from NSBCC Project Lead Dr. Toni Ribas.
2015
2015
A team of researchers at Yale University have invented a novel microdevice capable of detecting 42 unique immune effector proteins, a record number for a single-cell protein secretion assay; using the device, the team was also able to demonstrate that a phenotypically identical cell population still exhibits a large degree of intrinsic heterogeneity at the functional and cell behavior level.
2014
2014
A dream team of Cal Tech and UCLA scientists and doctors have created a treatment that’s giving hope to cancer patients who once had none. The medication was developed by chemistry professor James Heath and his lab at Cal Tech in Pasadena, who work day and night, to help UCLA oncologist Antoni Ribas try to cure his incurable cancer patients.
2013
2013
CEO Sean Mackay spoke about the market potential of the product, and how it could add to or improve on existing techniques used in the laboratory. The core of the patent-pending product, he explained, is its ability to perform analysis of isolated single immune cells and of proteins secreted over time.
2013
As analytical technologies have improved over the past decade, it has become clear that cells within the same tissue can differ greatly in how they are behaving at any given moment. Dr. Rong Fan’s team was interested in quantifying the various proteins that individual cells secrete as a function of their health or disease status.
2012
2012
Dr. James Heath and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology have developed an enabling microfluidic technology called the Single Cell Barcode Chip (SCBC). The SCBC is currently being used in a melanoma clinical trial where researchers are engineering patients’ immune systems to attack their own cancer.
2011
2011
Research led by scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has shown that a new generation of microchips developed by the team can quickly and inexpensively assess immune function by examining biomarkers—proteins that can reflect the response of the immune system to disease—from single cells.
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