Pioneering Cancer Plasticity Atlas will Help Predict Response to Cancer Therapies

The Wellcome Sanger Institute, Parse Biosciences, and the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich today announced a collaboration to build the foundation of a single cell atlas, focused on understanding and elucidating cancer plasticity in response to therapies. The collaboration will catalyze an ambitious future phase to develop a cancer plasticity atlas encompassing hundreds of millions of cells.

Utilizing novel organoid perturbation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms, the aim is to create a comprehensive dataset to fuel foundational drug discovery models and cancer research.

Dr. Mathew Garnett, Group Leader at the Sanger Institute, and Prof. Fabian Theis, Director of the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich and Associate Faculty at the Sanger Institute, will be the principal investigators in the collaboration.

Garnett’s research team has generated novel 3D organoid cultures that serve as highly scalable and functional cancer models with the ability to capture hallmarks of patient tumors. The team will use vast numbers of these tumor organoids — mini tumors in a dish — as a model to better understand cancer mechanisms of plasticity and adaptability in response to treatments.

Theis’ research team has been widely recognized for pioneering computational algorithms to solve complex biological challenges at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and single cell genomics, in this context for in silico modeling of drug effects on cellular systems. The initiative will be run through Parse Biosciences’ GigaLab, a state-of-the-art facility purpose built for the generation of massive scale single cell RNA sequencing datasets at unprecedented speed.

The Sanger, Helmholtz Munich, and Parse teams have developed automated methods to streamline laboratory procedures in addition to the computational methods required to analyze and discover insights within datasets of this size.

The ultimate aim of the collaboration is to build a single cell reference map that will enable virtual cell modeling and potentially help predict the effect of drugs in cancer patients – where resistance might develop, from which compounds, and where to target future treatment efforts.

Garnett, Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and collaboration co-lead, said: “We have developed a transformational platform to enable both large-scale organoid screening and the downstream data generation and analysis which has the potential to redefine our understanding of therapeutic responses in cancer. We aim to develop a community that brings the best expertise from academia and industry to progress the project. Studies of this magnitude are critical to the development of foundational models to better help us understand cancer progression and bring much needed advancement in the field.”

Theis, Director of the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich and collaboration co-lead, said: “Our vision of a virtual cell perturbation model is becoming increasingly feasible with recent advances in AI — but to scale effectively, we need large, high-quality single cell perturbation datasets. This collaboration enables that scale, and I’m excited to move toward AI-driven experimental design in drug discovery.”

Dr. Charlie Roco, Chief Technology Officer at Parse Biosciences, said: “We are incredibly excited to bring the power of GigaLab to visionary partners. Leveraging Parse’s Evercode chemistry, the GigaLab can rapidly produce large single cell datasets with exceptional quality. Combining the expertise of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Helmholtz Munich with the speed and scale achieved by the GigaLab enable the opportunity to fundamentally change our understanding of cancer.”

About Parse Biosciences

Parse Biosciences is a global life sciences company whose mission is to accelerate progress in human health and scientific research. Empowering researchers to perform single cell sequencing with unprecedented scale and ease, its pioneering approach has enabled groundbreaking discoveries in cancer treatment, tissue repair, stem cell therapy, kidney and liver disease, brain development, and the immune system.

With technology developed at the University of Washington by co-founders Alex Rosenberg and Charles Roco, Parse has raised over $100 million in capital and is used by over 2,500 customers across the world. Its growing portfolio of products includes Evercode™ Whole Transcriptome, Evercode™ TCR, Evercode™ BCR, Gene Select, and a solution for data analysis, Trailmaker™.

Parse Biosciences is based in Seattle’s vibrant South Lake Union district, where it recently expanded into a new headquarters and state-of-the-art laboratory. To learn more, please visit https://www.parsebiosciences.com/.

About Helmholtz Munich

Helmholtz Munich is a leading biomedical research center. Its mission is to develop breakthrough solutions for better health in a rapidly changing world. Interdisciplinary research teams focus on environmentally triggered diseases, especially the therapy and prevention of diabetes, obesity, allergies, and chronic lung diseases. With the power of artificial intelligence and bioengineering, researchers accelerate the translation to patients. Helmholtz Munich has around 2,500 employees and is headquartered in Munich/Neuherberg. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, with more than 43,000 employees and 18 research centers the largest scientific organization in Germany. More about Helmholtz Munich (Helmholtz Zentrum München Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Gesundheit und Umwelt GmbH): www.helmholtz-munich.de/en

About the Wellcome Sanger Institute

The Wellcome Sanger Institute is a world leading genomics research centre. We undertake large-scale research that forms the foundations of knowledge in biology and medicine. We are open and collaborative; our data, results, tools and technologies are shared across the globe to advance science. Our ambition is vast – we take on projects that are not possible anywhere else. We use the power of genome sequencing to understand and harness the information in DNA. Funded by Wellcome, we have the freedom and support to push the boundaries of genomics. Our findings are used to improve health and to understand life on Earth. Find out more at www.sanger.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and on our Blog.

About Wellcome

Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health. https://wellcome.org/

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