NEW YORK – Sengenics on Monday said it is collaborating with Duke Health to explore the role of autoantibody biomarkers in driving drug efficacy, resistance, and toxicity in metastatic colorectal cancer.
The researchers will screen for autoantibodies using arrays built with Boston-based Sengenics' KREX protein folding technology. The goal of the project is to identify biomarkers that can be used to stratify patients for personalized treatment and provide greater insights into metastatic colorectal cancer subtypes and disease progression.
"Autoantibodies not only offer a fresh perspective on treatment outcomes but can also provide biologically relevant and unique insights into disease that are not revealed by other 'omics' approaches," Sengenics CEO Jonathan Blackburn said in a statement.
Only 14 percent of metastatic colorectal cancer patients survive for five years after diagnosis. While immunotherapy approaches have focused on cellular immunity, there hasn't been much focus on exploiting the humoral immune system, according to Sengenics. The autoantibody biomarkers Sengenics and Duke Health identify through this collaboration will help researchers assess the humoral immune response to Genentech's PD-L1 inhibitor Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and anti-angiogenic drug Avastin (bevacizumab), two agents that have shown promise in metastatic colorectal cancer.