DxS, a personalised medicine company, will assist the AstraZeneca research fellow at University of Manchester in the development of mutation detection assays using its Scorpions and Arms technologies
DxS has been selected by AstraZeneca and the University of Manchester (Paterson Institute) to welcome a clinical research fellow supported by AstraZeneca and Cancer Research UK during part of a project, aiming to identify circulating DNA tumour markers in patients' blood.
DxS, a personalised medicine company, will assist the research fellow in the development of mutation detection assays using its Scorpions and Arms technologies.
These offer highly selective tests that show significant improvement in detection of low-level mutations over traditional sequencing-based techniques.
The assays can detect mutations in circulating DNA in blood, which is essential to allow the determination of the molecular profile of a tumour through methods other than an invasive biopsy.
The initial focus of the three year project will be to develop assays for genes which show prevalent mutations in cancer.
Andrew Hughes, director of discovery medicine at AstraZeneca with Professor Caroline Dive, clinical and experimental pharmacology, Paterson Institute comment: "With its expertise in Arms allele-specific PCR and its proven capability in the development of oncology mutation tests, DxS was a natural choice for a partner in this key diagnostic project looking at the identification of blood borne biomarkers for mechanism-based therapies."
