Project Grant R44CA228850

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a 5-year, $884,468 Project Grant (CFDA 93.393 - Cancer Cause and Prevention Research) to The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern) to investigate the role of the developmental transcription factor ONECUT2 in the development of pineoblastoma, a rare childhood cancer. The researchers developed a mouse model of pineoblastoma by ablating genes involved in microRNA processing, DROSHA and DICER1, and found that ONECUT2 and other...

This Project Grant awarded by the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.394 - Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research) provides $399,153 to Alelopharma Inc. to develop an ultra-sensitive liquid biopsy test to detect ALK gene fusions in non-small cell lung cancer patients. The goal is to create a diagnostic platform capable of accurately identifying ALK translocation variants in cell-free RNA from blood plasma, which could enable non-invasive cancer screening and monitoring of treatment response....

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a $554,653 Project Grant under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program (CFDA 93.394) to the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, WA. The 4-year grant titled "RARECYTEFINDER: A BENCH-TO-BITS TOOLKIT FOR LABEL-FREE, WHOLE-SPECTRUM ANALYSIS OF RARE DISSEMINATED TUMOR CELLS IN LIQUID AND TISSUE BIOPSIES" aims to develop an innovative, unbiased method for identifying and analyzing rare disseminated tumor cells (DTCs)...

This Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.394 - Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research) provides $670,147 to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to conduct research aimed at improving the clinical sensitivity of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) liquid biopsies. The research program has three key objectives: 1) Elucidating the role of the RNA binding protein SAM68 in mediating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) release, 2) Pharmacologically optimizing cfDNA release and stability to...

This Project Grant award of $500,928 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) under the Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.847) supports the development of an early detection test for Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) by Pupil Bio, Inc. The project aims to leverage next-generation sequencing (NGS) for methylation analysis (methyl-seq) of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) to identify B cell-specific methylation patterns that can serve as...

This Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.394 - Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research) provides $902,046 to Data Driven Bioscience Inc. to perform analytical and clinical validation of the extended applications for their DuoSeq genomic profiling assay. DuoSeq is a novel approach that enables dual DNA and RNA sequencing from a single workflow to provide comprehensive molecular diagnostic readouts for blood cancers, including DNA mutations, copy number alterations,...

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded The General Hospital Corporation, doing business as Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a $678,228 project grant under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program (CFDA 93.394) to develop GLISCAN, a multi-analyte, multi-mutation blood-based assay for rapid, sensitive molecular subtyping of gliomas. The project will optimize, verify, and validate the GLISCAN assay, which uses a highly sensitive digital PCR technology to quantify tumor...

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a $1,280,908 Project Grant under the Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program (CFDA 93.394) to Exai Bio Inc., a small disadvantaged business in Palo Alto, California. The grant supports the development of a novel assay and artificial intelligence (AI) model for early detection of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and predicting its subtypes using orphan non-coding RNA (oncRNA) biomarkers. The goal is to create a liquid biopsy-based diagnostic...

This Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research program (CFDA 93.394) provides $680,453 to the University of Wisconsin System to develop a liquid biopsy approach using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) fragments and machine learning to monitor for the transition between prostate adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC) in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients. The key objectives are to: 1) determine if...

This Project Grant award from the National Cancer Institute (CFDA 93.394 - Cancer Detection and Diagnosis Research) supports the development of a novel circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) assay technology by Binary Genomics, Inc. to monitor the efficacy of immunotherapy treatments for non-small cell lung cancer. The $398,040 award over 18 months will enable the company to evaluate the analytical and baseline clinical performance of their ctDNA assay, which aims to address limitations of existing...