CollabRx and The Jackson Laboratory Partner in Molecular Diagnostics for Cancer

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San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 02, 2014

CollabRx, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLRX), a data analytics company focused on informing clinical decision-making in molecular medicine, and The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution with a staff of over 1,500 employees, today announced a multi-year agreement to access CollabRx technology and content resources in support of the clinical interpretation of genetic sequencing-based tests provided by JAX.

The partnership with JAX represents CollabRxs first such relationship with a large and influential non-profit biomedical research institute and demonstrates the companys accelerating pace of business and channel development in 2014. This new milestone attests to the growing adoption of CollabRx technology and interpretive analytics in top-tier laboratories worldwide as a standard aspect of test reporting for clinical genetic sequencing in cancer and other diseases.

The Jackson Laboratory, now in its 85th year, has pioneered the use of genomics and bioinformatics to advance cancer research by bridging basic biology and translational studies to accelerate the development of new therapies, said Thomas Mika, Chairman, President & CEO of CollabRx. We are excited and proud to work with the Laboratory, an NCI-designated Cancer Center, to provide physicians with a clinically relevant interpretation of genetic sequencing test results as a seamless part of the reporting process.

Under the terms of the agreement, CollabRx medical and scientific knowledge will be incorporated into the results of genetic sequencing-based tests in oncology provided by JAX. JAX will leverage CollabRxs dynamically updated knowledge base in molecular medicine, ensuring that the latest medical and scientific data is made available to ordering physicians to aid in their interpretation of test results and inform patient-treatment planning. CollabRxs knowledge base includes the clinical impact of specific genetic profiles and is supported by its large and growing network of over 75 leading clinical practitioners in the United States and Europe.

The partnership will leverage each organizations commitment to developing cutting-edge medical informatics solutions to integrate, automate and standardize molecular testing and reporting in oncology. These capabilities are vital to the large-scale molecular analysis of tumors using clinical genetic sequencing, given the sheer volume and complexity of genetic data that is produced. While genetic sequencing-based tests are increasingly becoming an important part of the clinical management of cancer patients, the resulting explosion of data has outpaced the ability of practicing physicians to understand how to apply this genetic data in treating their patients.

A contextualized interpretation of cancer mutation panels is critical in using a genomics-based approach to inform cancer-treatment planning, said Dr. Charles Lee, Director of the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, in Farmington, CT. CollabRx has developed a scalable process and software platform to provide a best-in-class medical informatics solution that will enable JAX to arm physicians with a meaningful analysis of a tumors molecular characteristics when determining a cancer-treatment plan.

About CollabRx CollabRx, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLRX) is a recognized leader in cloud-based expert systems to inform healthcare decision-making. CollabRx uses information technology to aggregate and contextualize the worlds knowledge on genomics-based medicine with specific insights from the nations top cancer experts, starting with the area of greatest need: advanced cancers in patients who have effectively exhausted the standard of care. More information may be obtained at [http://www.collabrx.com .

About The Jackson Laboratory The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,500. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health. More information may be obtained at [http://www.jax.org/ .

CollabRx Safe Harbor Statement This press release includes forward-looking statements about CollabRxs anticipated results that involve risks and uncertainties. Some of the information contained in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements as to industry trends and CollabRxs plans, objectives, expectations and strategy for its business, contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. When used, the words "believe," "plan," "intend," "anticipate," "target," "estimate," "expect" and the like, and/or future tense or conditional constructions ("will," "may," "could," "should," etc.), or similar expressions, identify certain of these forward-looking statements. Important factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are detailed in filings made by CollabRx with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CollabRx undertakes no obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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CollabRx and The Jackson Laboratory Partner in Molecular Diagnostics for Cancer

University of Nebraska Medical Center Selects Cartagenia Bench Platform for NGS and Array …

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Enabled Reduced Analysis Time Per Case, Improved Ability to Track & Query Identified Variants

BOSTON and LEUVEN, Belgium - Cartagenia, the world leader in software-based workflow support for genetic variant assessment, lab reporting, and integration of diagnostic knowledge-bases, today announced that the Human Genetics Laboratory, part of the Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation (MMI) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), has selected the Cartagenia Bench platform genetics diagnostics solution for use at its healthcare laboratory. Cartagenia Bench is a cloud-based platform that allows genetics labs and clinicians to analyze, interpret, report, and share genomic variants in routine clinical diagnostics.

Jennifer N. Sanmann, PhD, MB(ASCP)(CM)CG(CM), a representative of the Human Genetics Laboratory at UNMC, noted that its laboratory's adoption of Bench has helped them track their lab findings in a single, well-annotated database and has led to significantly reduced report turnaround times.

"Our laboratory's experience with Cartagenia has been a very positive one," Dr. Sanmann said. "The transition from our internally developed system to Bench CNV and Bench NGS went smoothly and was well supported by the Cartagenia team. It has been our experience that the Bench modules have reduced significantly the amount of analysis time per case and have improved our ability to track and query identified variants."

"The boundary between molecular genetics and cytogenetics testing is fading. NGS technology is being adopted to determine structural events; public registries such as ClinVar collect both CNVs and SNPs; and most importantly, structural variation and molecular variation are more and more often used to jointly explain the patient phenotype, and reach a diagnosis," says Steven Van Vooren, Product Marketing Director at Cartagenia. "At Cartagenia, we strongly believe in a 'single platform' approach, where joint clinical interpretation of structural and molecular events comes natural, and is agnostic of the technology used to pick up variants."

The Cartagenia Bench platform is a clinical-grade, medical device software platform that supports the assesment and reporting of structural variants such as copy number gains, losses, and changes in zygosity, as well as molecular events such as single nucleotide events, and small insertions and deletions.

"We see strong growth in labs adopting both our NGS and CNV modules on the Bench platform, and bringing together structural and molecular variants in their interpretation and reporting," says Herman Verrelst, CEO of Cartagenia. "At Cartagenia, we want to facilitate this evolution, allowing labs to automate their workflow as much as possible and use the time won to focus on the clinical setting in which to assess and report variants - whether postnatal, prenatal or in oncology."

About UNMC

UNMC's Human Genetics Laboratory is a CAP and CLIA accredited full service cytogenetic and molecular genetic laboratory combining comprehensive genetic testing with personalized clinical consultation to provide the very best in genetic medicine to every client and patient served. As genetic disease continues to become more widely identifiable, customized technology and new assays are developed and validated, meeting expanding clinician and patient needs through advancements in systems, software, and diagnoses. In addition to diagnostic and research studies in the areas of perinatal, postnatal, and oncology testing, comprehensive services at UNMC include clinical evaluation by licensed genetic counselors and board certified medical geneticists. Visit unmc.edu/geneticslab to learn more.

About Cartagenia

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University of Nebraska Medical Center Selects Cartagenia Bench Platform for NGS and Array ...

2014 ACMG Foundation/Signature Genomic Labs, PerkinElmer Inc. Travel Award winner

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1-Apr-2014

Contact: Kathy Beal kbeal@acmg.net 301-238-4582 American College of Medical Genetics

Jun Shen, PhD was honored as the 2014 recipient of the ACMG Foundation/Signature Genomics from PerkinElmer, Inc. Travel Award at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) 2014 Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting in Nashville, TN.

Dr. Shen was selected to receive the award for her platform presentation, "Clinical Validation of a Novel Combinatorial Algorithm that Predicts Pathogenicity of Human Missense Variants with High Accuracy."

Dr. Shen completed her PhD in Neurobiology at Harvard University, and completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neurobiology with a focus on the inner ear at Howard Hughes Medical Institution/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Shen received her Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Computer Science at Dartmouth College. She is currently an Instructor in Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School and an Assistant Laboratory Director, Laboratory for Molecular Medicine, Partners HealthCare Center for Personalized Genetic Medicine.

The ACMG Foundation/Signature Genomics Travel Award is given to an ACMG Trainee member whose abstract submission was chosen as a platform presentation during the ACMG Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting. The ACMG Program Committee selects the Travel Award recipient based on scientific merit. In recognition of the selected presentation, Signature Genomics covers the travel costs for the recipient to the ACMG meeting.

"The Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine is grateful to Signature Genomics for its continued generous support of the development of medical genetic researchers through this Travel Award," said Bruce R. Korf, MD, PhD FACMG, president of the ACMG Foundation for Genetic and Genomic Medicine.

"Signature Genomics is pleased to support the recognition of young researchers like Dr. Shen who are working in the field of genetics and genomics. This presentation is just one of the many outstanding presentations at the 2014 ACMG Annual Meeting," said Beth Torchia, PhD, FACMG, Technical Laboratory Director at Signature Genomics from PerkenElmer, Inc.

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2014 ACMG Foundation/Signature Genomic Labs, PerkinElmer Inc. Travel Award winner

Gene therapy improves limb function following spinal cord injury

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1-Apr-2014

Contact: Anne Nicholas media@sfn.org 202-962-4086 Society for Neuroscience

Delivering a single injection of a scar-busting gene therapy to the spinal cord of rats following injury promotes the survival of nerve cells and improves hind limb function within weeks, according to a study published April 2 in The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that, with more confirming research in animals and humans, gene therapy may hold the potential to one day treat people with spinal cord injuries.

The spinal cord is the main channel through which information passes between the brain and the rest of the body. Most spinal cord injuries are caused by damage to the axons, the long extensions that brain cells use to send these messages. Once these injuries take place, scar tissue forms and prevents the damaged nerves from re-growing.

Previous animal studies show that one way to promote the growth of injured spinal nerve cells is to administer the enzyme chondroitinase ABC (ChABC), which digests scar-forming proteins, to the site of injury. However, because ChABC breaks down quickly, maintaining these beneficial effects for a long period of time requires invasive and repeated administration of the enzyme to the spinal cord. To get around this hurdle, in recent years, scientists began exploring gene therapy as a method to efficiently coax spinal cord cells to produce the enzyme.

In the current study, a group of researchers led by Elizabeth Bradbury, PhD, of King's College London used a single injection to deliver the ChABC gene therapy into the spinal cord of injured adult rats. The treatment not only led the spinal cord cells to produce and secrete ChABC in large quantities over areas spanning the injury epicenter, it helped to maintain the overall health of the damaged spinal cord and restored hind limb function in the animals within 12 weeks.

"These findings provide convincing evidence that gene therapy with chondroitinase not only encourages the sprouting of injured axons, but also imparts significant protection to nerve cells," said Mark Tuszynski, MD, PhD, who studies how nerve cells recover following injury at the University of California, San Diego, and was not involved in this study. "These are new and important findings that could lead to the development of testable therapies for spinal cord injury in people," he added.

Bradbury's team delivered the ChABC gene into the matrix of the spinal cord (the space between spinal cord cells). Twelve weeks later, the animals that received the therapy had more surviving spinal nerve cells and fibers present through and around the scar compared with animals that did not receive the treatment. ChABC gene therapy also led to the recovery of hind limb function in the animals, allowing them to navigate the rungs of a horizontal ladder.

Additional analysis revealed that ChABC gene therapy changed the way that inflammatory cells in the region respond following injury. Normally, after injury, immune cells invade the spinal cord and cause destructive and irreparable tissue damage. However, ChABC gene therapy decreased the presence of these cells and increased the presence of other immune cells called M2 macrophages that help to reduce inflammation and enhance tissue repair.

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Gene therapy improves limb function following spinal cord injury

$2.5 million Defense Department grant funds gene therapy study for Lou Gehrig's disease

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1-Apr-2014

Contact: Sandy Van sandy@prpacific.com 808-526-1708 Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

LOS ANGELES (April 1, 2014) The Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute has received a $2.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to conduct animal studies that, if successful, could provide the basis for a clinical trial of a gene therapy product for patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

The incurable disorder attacks muscle-controlling nerve cells motor neurons in the brain, brainstem and spinal cord. As the neurons die, the ability to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. Patients experience muscle weakness that steadily leads to paralysis; the disease usually is fatal within five years of diagnosis. Several genes have been identified in familial forms of ALS, but most cases are caused by a complex combination of unknown genetic and environmental factors, experts believe.

Because ALS affects a higher-than-expected percentage of military veterans, especially those returning from overseas duties, the Defense Department invests $7.5 million annually to search for causes and treatments. The Cedars-Sinai study, led by Clive Svendsen, PhD, professor and director of the Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and Genevive Gowing, PhD, a senior scientist in his laboratory, also will involve a research team at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a Netherlands-based biotechnology company, uniQure, that has extensive experience in human gene therapy research and development.

The research will be conducted in laboratory rats bred to model a genetic form of ALS. If successful, it could have implications for patients with other types of the disease and could translate into a gene therapy clinical trial for this devastating disease.

It centers on a protein, GDNF, that promotes the survival of neurons. In theory, transporting GDNF into the spinal cord could protect neurons and slow disease progression, but attempts so far have failed, largely because the protein does not readily penetrate into the spinal cord. Regenerative Medicine Institute scientists previously showed that spinal transplantation of stem cells that were engineered to produce GDNF increased motor neuron survival, but this had no functional benefit because it did not prevent nerve cell deterioration at a critical site, the "neuromuscular junction" the point where nerve fibers connect with muscle fibers to stimulate muscle action.

Masatoshi Suzuki, PhD, DVM, assistant professor of comparative biosciences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who previously worked in the Svendsen Laboratory and remains a close collaborator, recently found that stem cells derived from human bone marrow and engineered to produce GDNF protected nerve cells, improved motor function and increased lifespan when transplanted into muscle groups of a rat model of ALS.

"It seems clear that GDNF has potent neuroprotective effects on motor neuron function when the protein is delivered at the level of the muscle, regardless of the delivery method. We think GDNF will be able to help maintain these connections in patients and thereby keep the motor neuron network functional," Suzuki said.

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$2.5 million Defense Department grant funds gene therapy study for Lou Gehrig's disease

Amor pedestre-1914-Marcel Fabre -Experimental cinema- Italian Futurism-Amazing movie – Video

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Amor pedestre-1914-Marcel Fabre -Experimental cinema- Italian Futurism-Amazing movie
"Amor Pedestre (1914) was part of a series of comic films directed by and starring Marcel Fabre as the protagonist, Robinet. In Amor Pedestre, he sets out on...

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Amor pedestre-1914-Marcel Fabre -Experimental cinema- Italian Futurism-Amazing movie - Video

Family Research Council President Talks Openly About Religious Freedom in America – Video

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Family Research Council President Talks Openly About Religious Freedom in America
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins talks about the FRC headquarter shooting, Hobby Lobby and religious freedom in America. For more information a...

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Family Research Council President Talks Openly About Religious Freedom in America - Video