New Project to Improve Diagnosis and Treatment of Ovarian Cancer

Porvair Sciences reports on its involvement in a new £2.6 million project led by Swansea University that aims to dramatically improve the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer.

This project will involve collaboration with 5 key industrial partners - Porvair Sciences, Bruker UK, GE Healthcare UK, Axis Bio and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). A new Antibody Drug Conjugates company will join the project in its second year. Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC’s) are a powerful new class of therapeutics in medical oncology, where antibodies that target specific cancers are coupled with cytotoxic agents. The Cluster for Epigenomic and Antibody Drug Conjugate Therapeutics (CEAT) project aims to utilise novel epigenetic drugs and ADC’s to manipulate chemical compounds thus creating a new route for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Utilising its proprietary Chromatrap® bead-free Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) technology, Porvair Sciences will develop new epigenomic profiling approaches that will deliver the required advances in cutting-edge drug development and patient profiling. Using the Chromatrap® technology, Porvair Sciences will work with Swansea University and industrial partners to identify and characterise epigenetic drugs that are effective in preventing cancer development in ovarian cancer models. In addition, Porvair Sciences will support the evaluation of the Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs) resulting from the CEAT project.

CEAT principal investigator, Dr Lewis Francis from Swansea University’s School of Medicine, commented: “Epigenetics involves chemical changes to the DNA and associated proteins that can lead to genes being turned on or off. In some cases, this can go wrong and lead to disease. Through the CEAT project, Swansea University will work closely with CEAT partners to develop drugs that can control epigenetic signals; these epigenetic drugs can be targeted specifically towards ovarian cancer cells where epigenetic changes have occurred.”

Amy Johnson, Business and Technical Development Manager at Porvair Sciences, commented: “We are delighted to be involved with the CEAT project. This is a great opportunity for the project to leverage our bead-free ChIP technology and expertise to be at the forefront of developing epigenetic-based cancer therapies.”

For further information on the CEAT project please contact z.coombes@swansea.ac.uk.

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