The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a team of researchers a USD3m (GBP1.9m) grant to conduct gene expression research involving Wafergen's Smartchip real-time PCR system.
This research team at the University of Pittsburgh will be led by Naftali Kaminski, Steven Shapiro and Frank Sciurba.
The team will apply gene expression profiling to lung samples from patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
The goal is to identify and validate disease relevant gene expression signatures and micro-environments, while also generating relevant module maps of COPD and IPF that will help to characterise the diseases and their underlying causes.
Wafergen's Smartchip platform will be used to validate the gene expression findings in the area of lung disease.
The NIH-funded research will also include the development and application of the Pulmosmartchip, a custom-designed Smartchip molecular phenotyping assay for COPD and IPF.
The Pulmosmartchip will include the lowest number of genes that distinguish all phenotypes of IPF and COPD.
It will be used to identify and validate module networks capable of predicting the natural history of the diseases and patient response to specific therapeutics.
Researchers believe that the availability of these modules will be a significant step in laying the foundations for the introduction of personalised medicine approaches in pulmonary medicine.
Alnoor Shivji, Wafergen's chairman and chief executive officer, said: 'The work related to the development and use of the Pulmosmartchip is particularly exciting as it will seek to demonstrate the inherent power of the Smartchip system in creating and utilising custom disease-specific gene expression assays.
'We anticipate that this cutting-edge functionality will position the Smartchip system as the platform of choice for discovery and validation of biomarkers.' The University of Pittsburgh is the first research institution to have access to Wafergen's Smartchip PCR system.
