Daily Archives: October 15, 2019

NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the current analysis of Reports and Data, the Global Gene Expression market is expected to reach USD 11.37 billion by the year 2026, in terms of value at a CAGR of 8.1% from 2019-2026. Gene expression promises to tap into a previously unexplored segment in the vast and burgeoning genetic engineering industry. Gene expression is the process by which the genetic code - the nucleotide sequence - of a gene is used to direct protein synthesis and produce the structures of a cell. It is the process by which instructions in the DNA are converted into a functional product like protein. The commercial applications of gene expression have been studied and researched upon extensively in recent years. Many diverse and wide ranging applications have been found for this novel technique. With the increased availability and lowering costs of DNA technologies, gene expression has become a more readily used tool indispensable in drug discovery and development.

Increase in investments in the market, which are supporting the technological advancements, and rise in healthcare expenditure are estimated to shape the growth of the gene expression market. Drug discovery & development and increase in demand for personalized medicine in chronic diseases such as cancer will be observed as the most lucrative applications for gene expression analysis in the forecast period. Application of gene expression in clinical diagnostics, on the other hand, will reflect a moderate growth throughout the analysis period. Moreover, the falling costs of sequencing have facilitated the integration of genomic sequencing into medicine. With the increased availability and lowering costs of DNA technologies, gene expression has become a more readily used tool indispensable in drug discovery and development. Many companies and educational institutions are collaborating to make gene expression publicly accessible through databases such as the Connectivity Map (CMap), Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) and the Tox 21 project.

New product development has been the consistent strategy undertaken by majority of the players to expand their product portfolio for serving a larger consumer base. For example, in September 2019, Qiagen N.V., launched the newly enhanced GeneGlobe Design & Analysis Hub, which integrates the company's manually curated knowledge base on over 10,000 biological entities with the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS), polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and functional analysis. Other companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific and Illumina Inc. have launched new products in the last few months which are being used in the gene expression market.

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For the purpose of the study, this Reports and Data has segmented the Gene Expression Market on the basis of product type, platform type, prescription mode, end user and the regional outlook

Product and Services (Revenue, USD Million; 20162026)

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Gene Expression Market to Reach USD 11.37 Billion by 2026 | Reports and Data - P&T Community

A gene therapy being developed atPenn Medicineto treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) successfully and safely stopped the severe muscle deterioration associated with the rare, genetic disease in both small and large animal models, according to a first-of-its-kind study from Penn Medicine researchers. The findings, published online on Monday, Oct. 7, inNature Medicine,puts the field within closer reach of a safe and effective gene therapy that uses a substitute protein without triggering immune responses known to hinder other therapeutic approaches.

Found mostly in boys, DMD is caused by mutations in a sex-linked gene that stop production of a muscle-building protein known as dystrophin. Without it, muscles progressively deteriorate and weaken starting at a very young age and only worsen from there. Most patients arent able to walk by age 12 and die of heart or respiratory failure by the time they reach their 30s, though respirators have helped some live longer.

With their modified gene therapy approach, a multidisciplinary team from thePerelman School of Medicineengineered adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors to deliver a substitute protein for dystrophin in small and large animal DMD models to keep the muscles intact. The synthetic substitute, based on a naturally occurring protein called utrophin, proved to be an effective and safe alternative, as it protected muscle in mice and dogs with naturally occurring DMD-like mutations, including a large deletion that closely mirrors the large dystrophin deletions found in humans.

For the first time, weve shown how a carefully constructed version of a dystrophin-related protein can safely prevent the breakdown of muscle and maintain its function over time in the most informative animal models. This discovery has important implications for gene therapy and how we work toward safe and effective treatments for muscular dystrophy, sayssenior authorHansell Stedman, an associate professor of surgery. With these results, we have a strong rationale to move this forward into human clinical trials.

Read more atPenn Medicine News.

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Gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy safely preserves muscle function - Penn: Office of University Communications

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Growth Opportunities in the Neurodegenerative Disorder Therapeutics Market, Forecast to 2024" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

As one lives longer, one needs to increasingly battle age-related disorders. Neurodegenerative disorders are the most worrisome because they impact millions of people around the world and lack any curative therapy. While companies continue their search, they are also battling declining revenues from marketed products used to manage symptoms. Heavy genericization, followed by price erosion, reliance on patient-reported data for diagnosis and measuring outcomes, and elusive R&D success, has put unprecedented pressure on pharma companies and prompted several to shed their assets mid-way.

This research service, in addition to quantifying the market, provides details of future products and the expected revenue generation from them. While the therapy market is marred by high rates of pipeline attrition, there are several parallel areas of growth. For instance, the study covers regenerative medicine, which has grown by leaps and bounds and offers the promise of curative therapies.

The study also dives deep into different technological advancements, geographical trends, and potential partnership opportunities for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. The study covers opportunities in prevention facilitated by digital solutions integration, in conjunction with an understanding of disease diagnosis and progression, expedited drug development, and, most importantly, delivery of the required outcome to the patient.

The study captures the competitive landscape and the different strategies employed by companies to stay ahead of the curve and identifies the game-changing companies leading innovation from the front. Acknowledging the high cost of failure, the study investigates the need and growing acceptance of open innovation to curate data, ask better questions, extract meaningful insights, and create more accurate and predictable solutions.

In addition to collaboration with peers, companies will seek partnership with digital partners. Given the growing availability of data, technologies and tools, and research expertise there are several companies seeking clinically validated solutions, which have been profiled in the study. The study lays down strategic imperatives for companies to recalibrate their business models based on collaboration and be future-ready.

Information is also provided on some of the leading M&A activities impacting the market, as well as unconventional collaboration agreements laying the foundation for propelling innovations toward licensure and delivery. Furthermore, present and future market trends such as regulatory support, focus on wellness, and value chain convergence, which would shape the market, are discussed.

Key Issues Addressed

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Dashboard

2. Market Overview and Dynamics

3. Forecast and Trends - Total Neurodegenerative Disorder Therapeutics Market

4. Alzheimer's Disease Segment Analysis

5. Parkinson's Disease Segment Analysis

6. Competitive Landscape - Total Neurodegenerative Disorder Therapeutics Market

7. Visioning Scenarios

8. Growth Opportunities

9. The Last Word

10. Appendix

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/igkntv

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Global Neurodegenerative Disorder Therapeutics Market 2019-2024: Opportunities in Digital Biomarkers, Microbiome Therapeutics, Cell and Gene Therapy,...

We often talk about genetics as if its set in stone. She just has good genes or He was born with it are common phrases.

However, over the past decade, biochemists and geneticists have discovered that your genetic expression changes over time. Based on environmental factors, certain genes may be strongly expressive while others are dormant.

In fact, a 2016 study of human longevity found that only 25% of health outcomes are attributable to genetics. The other 75% of outcomes are attributable to environmental factors. Among those environmental factors, diet and nutrition play a major role.

An entire branch of scientific research has now exploded around nutrigenomics, the study of the interaction between nutrition and genetics. Scientists now understand that genes set the baseline for how your body can function, but nutrition modifies the extent to which each gene is expressed.

As more data comes in about the types and quality of food that improve health outcomes, high-tech farmers are also entering the nutrigenomics conversation. Using precision agriculture, they hope to produce food thats targeted to deliver a nutrient-rich, genetically beneficial diet.

Implications Of Nutrigenomics

Researchers have found that theres no such thing as a perfect diet. Dietary recommendations are not one-size-fits-all. Each individual needs different nutritional choices for optimal health and gene expression. In addition, each person is different in the extent to which their genes and health are impacted by their diet.

Geneticists and nutritionists are working together to study the dietary levers that most impact genetic expression. If theyre successful, it may be possible to prevent and treat disease through individualized nutrition tailored to your genetic profile. Indeed, you may walk into a doctors office and leave with a dietary prescription customized to your DNA.

In the near future, instead of diagnosing and treating diseases caused by genome or epigenome damage, health care practitioners may be trained to diagnose and nutritionally prevent or even reverse genomic damage and aberrant gene expression, reports Michael Fenech, a research scientist at CSIRO Genome Health and Nutrigenomics Laboratory.

The initial results of nutrigenomics studies are promising. A healthy, personalized diet has the potential to prevent, mitigate, or even cure certain chronic diseases. Nutrigenomics has shown promise in preventing obesity, cancer and diabetes.

If Food Is Medicine, Food Quality Matters

Nutrient abundance or deficiency is the driving factor behind nutrigenomics. Foods that have grown in poor conditions have a lower nutritional density. In turn, eating low-quality foods can have a significant impact on human gene expression. In order to take advantage of the findings of nutrigenomics, consumers need access to high-quality, nutrient-dense foods.

Similar to human health, plant health is impacted by the combination of genes and nutrient intake. Healthy soil, correctly applied fertilization techniques, and other forms of environmental management lead to healthy crops.

However, applying these custom growing techniques at a large scale is a major challenge. Agriculture technology (AgTech) will play a big role in allowing farmers to precisely manage the growing conditions and nutrient delivery for their crops. In turn, this precision farming will make crops more nutritious and targeted for nutrigenomics-driven diets.

Making Food Thats Better For Us

Plant health relies on nutrient uptake from the soil. In order to ensure plants receive the nutrients they need, farmers need to precisely apply additives where theyre needed. With in-ground sensors, advanced mapping of crop quality across a field, and other technologies, farmers can target their applications of water and nutrients to match plant needs. The days of broadly applying generic fertilizer to entire fields are coming to an end.

Farmers play an integral role in providing access to diverse, nutritious food, explains Remi Schmaltz, CEO of Decisive Farming. Nutrient deficiency in plants and the soil can contribute to the deficiencies found in humans. The opportunity exists to address these deficiencies through precision nutrition delivered by the agriculture sector.

Additionally, CRISPR and other technologies allow us to experiment with the genetic makeup of plants, increasing nutrition and flavor, both pluses for consumers. In recent years, genetic modification has produced disease-resistant bananas, more flavorful tomatoes, lower gluten wheat, non-browning mushrooms and sustainable rice. While there has been a lot of skepticism over genetically-modified crops, multiple studies have shown that GMOs are safe for consumption and can even improve plant health and nutrition.

Using Biochemistry And Big Data To Create Better Food And Healthier People

Nutrigenomics will completely change how we think about health and disease prevention. Indeed, personalized diet recommendations that are tailored to your genes could be a new form of medicine for chronic illnesses.

Nevertheless, a key part of making nutrigenomics effective is having access to high-quality, nutrient-dense foods. AgTech is using the internet of things, AI, precision farming and gene editing to make nutrient-dense food more readily available. The benefits to public health from these efforts could change the way we think about medicine, longevity and what it means to be healthy.

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Food As Medicine: What Biochemistry And Genetics Are Teaching Us About How To Eat Right - Forbes

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New research links a genetic anomaly and some forms of SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, which claims the lives of more than 3,000 infants a year.

The research, published in Nature Communications, focuses on mitochondrial tri-functional protein deficiency, a potentially fatal cardiac metabolic disorder caused by a genetic mutation in the gene HADHA.

Newborns with this genetic anomaly cant metabolize the lipids found in milk, and die suddenly of cardiac arrest when they are a couple months old. Lipids are a category of molecules that include fats, cholesterol, and fatty acids.

There are multiple causes for sudden infant death syndrome, says Hannele Ruohola-Baker, professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who is also associate director of the Medicine Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine.

There are some causes which are environmental. But what were studying here is really a genetic cause of SIDS. In this particular case, it involves defect in the enzyme that breaks down fat.

Lead author Jason Miklas, who earned his PhD at the University of Washington and is now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, says he first came up with the idea while researching heart disease and noticed a small research study that had examined children who couldnt process fats and who had cardiac disease that was not readily explained.

So he and Ruohola-Baker started looking into why heart cells, grown to mimic infant cells, died in the petri dish where they were growing.

If a child has a mutation, depending on the mutation the first few months of life can be very scary as the child may die suddenly, Miklas says. An autopsy wouldnt necessarily pick up why the child passed but we think it might be due to the infants heart stopping to beat.

Were no longer just trying to treat the symptoms of the disease, Miklas says. Were trying to find ways to treat the root problem. Its very gratifying to see that we can make real progress in the lab toward interventions that could one day make their way to the clinic.

In MTP deficiency, the heart cells of affected infants dont convert fats into nutrients properly, resulting in a build-up of unprocessed fatty material that can disrupt heart functions. More technically, the breakdown occurs when enzymes fail to complete a process known as fatty acid oxidation. It is possible to screen for the genetic markers of MTP deficiency; but effective treatments remain a ways off.

Ruohola-Baker says the latest laboratory discovery is a big step towards finding ways to overcome SIDS.

There is no cure for this, she says. But there is now hope, because weve found a new aspect of this disease that will innovate generations of novel small molecules and designed proteins, which might help these patients in the future.

One drug the group is focusing on is Elamipretide, used to stimulate hearts and organs that have oxygen deficiency, but barely considered for helping infant hearts, until now. In addition, prospective parents can undergo screening to see if there is a chance that they could have a child who might carry the mutation.

Ruohola-Baker has a personal interest in the research: one of her friends in Finland, her home country, had a baby who died of SIDS.

It was absolutely devastating for that couple, she says. Since then, Ive been very interested in the causes for sudden infant death syndrome. Its very exciting to think that our work may contribute to future treatments, and help for the heartbreak for the parents who find their children have these mutations.

The National Institutes of Health, the Academy of Finland, Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research. Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Research Center, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research of Canada, an Alexander Graham Bell Graduate Scholarship, and the National Science Foundation funded the work.

Source: University of Washington

Original Study DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12482-1

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Some cases of SIDS may have this genetic cause - Futurity: Research News

Nobel Assembly member, Randall Johnson (R), speaks to announce the winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (L-R) Gregg Semenza of the US, Peter Ratcliffe of Britain and William Kaelin of the US, seen on a screen during a press

Dr. William G. Kaelin, Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, and Dr. Gregg L. Semenza now have an extra line to add to their resumes or LinkedIn profiles. The Nobel Assembly announced on Monday that these three physician-scientists have been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for helping find ways that your body can sense and adapt to different levels of oxygen:

Winning this Prize will bring each of them a third of a 9 million Swedish kronor or $907,000 cash prize and an amazing retort to anyone else who may brag too much at a cocktail party. Of course, the Nobel Prize isnt their first accomplishment but instead serves as a tribute to three careers that have brought discoveries that may lead to new treatments for anemia and cancer.

Kaelin is currently a Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Born in 1957, he eventually got his M.D. from Duke University, Durham, and trained in internal medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Ratcliffe wasnt a Sir yet when he was born in 1954. After studying medicine at Cambridge University and completing nephrology training at Oxford, he subsequently became the Nuffield Professor of Clinical Medicine at Oxford and the Director of Clinical Research at the Francis Crick Institute in London, Director for Target Discovery Institute at Oxford, a Member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and knighted.

Semenza is a Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Vascular Research Program at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering. He was born in 1956, obtained both an MD and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and completed residency training in pediatrics at Duke University and a post-doc at Johns Hopkins University.

To understand the importance of their discoveries, its important to understand the how your body needs complex ways to regulate oxygen levels. As you first learn when you try to put a sock over your head (dont try this, by the way), oxygen is pretty fundamental to everything that you do. Without it, the trillions and trillions of cells in your body couldnt survive and function. Each cell uses oxygen to help break down nutrients into energy. Thus, no oxygen, no energy. No energy, no cells, and no you. And no Instagramming and texting.

The trouble is oxygen, like macaroni and cheese and anything else good in life, isnt always present at the levels that you and all your cells would like. Oxygen levels can fluctuate in the air that you breathe and in different parts of your body. The ability of each of your cells to get oxygen can depend heavily on location, location, location, as the old real estate saying goes.

Think of your body as a large and complex metropolitan area with many different neighborhoods. Red blood cells are like little Ubers picking up oxygen at your lungs and then carrying the molecules of oxygen along your blood vessels, which serve as roads to different parts of your body. Just as the roads are different in different parts of the Boston area, the density and networks of blood vessels vary throughout your body. Thus, not every part of your body will always get the same amount of blood and oxygen. These differences can be exacerbated when your blood circulation in general decreases, such as when you are lying on the coach after eating way too much macaroni and cheese, or blood flow in a particular part of your body gets interrupted, such as when you are bleeding or have a blood clot.

Therefore, like a well-run city, your body needs ways of sensing whats going on in each of the neighborhoods and adjusting oxygen levels accordingly. One way of adjusting your bodys oxygen supply in general is by changing your breathing rate. The carotid arteries are the major blood vessels in your neck and the ones that often spurt blood in slasher horror movies. These arteries include structures called carotid bodies that can check the oxygen levels in the passing blood. If oxygen levels are too low, the carotid bodies sends signals through nerves to increase your breathing rate. If the oxygen levels are too high, the carotid bodies will signal to slow your breathing. While this may help the overall amount of oxygen getting into your lungs and blood circulation, it alone cant monitor and adjust the oxygen thats getting to more local levels throughout your body.

Another thing that regulates oxygen levels is EPO, which is pronounced like Emo but with a p instead of an m. EPO is short for erythropoietin, a hormone that can stimulate your body to produce more red blood cells and thus have more Ubers to deliver oxygen. When EPO levels rise, erythropoiesis, a fancy name for red blood cell production, increases. However, before the work of Semenza, Ratcliffe, and Kaelin and their respective teams, it wasnt clear exactly how oxygen levels were able to affect EPO levels.

Here is Dr. Gregg L. Semenza M.D., Ph.D at a press conference at Johns Hopkins Hospital after learning that he had won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. (Photo by John Strohsacker/Getty Images)

In the 1990s, both Semenzas and Ratcliffes teams found that all types of body tissues have the ability to sense oxygen levels, not just the kidney cells that produce EPO. Semenzas team found DNA sequences near the genes that code for EPO and continued to search for ways that the EPO gene is regulated. A HIF, HIF hooray moment came when they found a protein complex, which they named HIF for hypoxia-inducible factor. Hypoxia is a medical term for low oxygen. Thus, when George Costanza said on an episode of Seinfeld, oxygen, I need oxygen, he could have said, I have hypoxia, instead. Thus, hypoxia-induced means something that will be stimulated by low oxygen levels. The team eventually realized that this protein complex actually consists of two different proteins that can bind DNA, which they named HIF-1 and ARNT.

Experiments showed that when oxygen levels are high, cells have very low levels of HIF-1 because the HIF-1 thats produced gets rapidly degraded. However, when oxygen levels dip low, HIF-1, in the words of the Supremes, keeps on hanging on and doesnt degrade as quickly. Therefore, there is more HIF-1 around to stimulate the EPO genes to produce more EPO.

The difference seemed to be ubiquitin. Ubiqutin can bind to HIF-1 and mark it to go bye bye, which is what host of the game show The Weakest Link says to contestants before they must exit. In this way, ubiquitin serves as a label to say, please get rid of this.

But it still wasnt yet clear how lower oxygen levels could keep ubiquitin from binding to HIF-1. This is when Kaelins team entered the mix. They had been studying something seemingly unrelated, von Hippel-Lindaus disease, which is often abbreviated VHL disease. This is a condition that is inherited and includes mutations in the VHL gene. They observed that normally the VHL gene codes for proteins that seem to prevent certain cancers from developing. In VHL disease, mutations prevent this gene from working properly, allowing a number of different cancers to emerge.

William G Kaelin Jr., MD, speaks at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on October 7, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)

Here is an example of how starting on one path doesnt necessarily lead you to where you thought you would go and how the most interesting things in life can be unexpected. Kaelins team eventually realized that such cells with mutations in the VHL gene also expressed abnormally high levels of hypoxia-regulated genes, which made them wonder whether VHL played a role in regulating the response to low oxygen levels. This wasnt totally surprising since cancer cells also need oxygen to survive, and such cells cant always get the same access to blood and oxygen when they sit deep in the middle of tumors.

Indeed, additional work showed that the VHL genes produce proteins that then help connect ubiquitin to HIF-1 and thus label HIF-1 for destruction. In essence, VHL is like a warehouse inventory manager using ubiquitin as a label for get rid of this. But the scientists were still left with the question, how do oxygen levels influence whether VHL labels HIF-1 with ubiquitin?

The mystery step turned out to be prolyl hydroxylation. What-yl what-xylation? This is a process by which enzymes (calledprolyl hydroxylases) add hydroxyl groups to two parts of the HIF-1 protein. A hydroxyl group is a combination of an oxygen atom (designated by O) and hydrogen atom (designated by H) and symbolized by -OH. This process is necessary for the HIF-1 protein to be labeled and destroyed. Think of it as OH, lets get rid of this. When oxygen levels are lower, many HIF-1 proteins may not get this OH thus preventing the VHL-ubiquitin labeling process from occurring. The work of Kaelin, Semenz, and their teams thus found the final piece of the puzzle and said OH, thats how it works.

You can see how prolyl hydroxylases could play major roles in the treatment of anemia (which occurs when your red blood cell counts are low) and various cancers with their ability to ultimately regulate red blood cell production and oxygen delivery. Again, cancer cells need oxygen to survive. Starve them of oxygen and you may have a way of killing them.

It didnt seem like this trio of investigators started their independent scientific careers with the intent of all of this happening. While science needs some direction, you cant just go into a lab and start mixing things together, the best science often emerges from exploration and being curious and open to different possibilities. Semenza, Ratcliffe, and Kaelin clearly had the minds and abilities to do such science but they also had the time and resources to do so. Like body tissues do for varying oxygen levels, science and scientists need to have the ability and opportunity to adapt to what they may find. This may not occur as often these days when research funding is more limited and people and institutions are pushing for immediate returns on work. For the eventual benefit of humankind, scientists need to be able to say, OH, lets try this, and then find OH, what do we have here?

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The 2019 Nobel Prize In Medicine: Here Is What Won The Award - Forbes

Next-generation sequencing techniques to determine an individuals unique genetic code gave rise to personalized treatments. Single-cell sequencing is the next step towards making precision medicine more accurate.

Each cell in our body is unique. Even genetically identical cells can behave differently in response to a certain treatment. With next-generation sequencing, scientists can study how the average cell within a group behaves. However, this can lead to erroneous conclusions.

It is like population surveys which tell us the average American family has 1.2 children. Thats useless. Thats not helpful. Not a single family has 1.2 children, stated Christoph Lengauer, CEO of Celsius Therapeutics, in an interview with STAT News. His company has raised more than 60M to develop precision therapies using machine learning.

Single-cell sequencing, by contrast, can indicate which family has six children, and which has just one and a dog, Lengauer said. Its orders of magnitude more granular.

This is a huge paradigm shift. Single-cell sequencing was recognized as method of the year by Nature in 2013. Since then, the number of publications from both academia and the industry exploded.

In recent years, there has been a shift in the technology available to perform single-cell sequencing. Fluidigm used to hold the bulk of the market with products across the entire workflow but is currently suffering from poor sales due to new competitors.

At the forefront is US-based 10X Genomics, founded in 2012, which registered a 20-fold revenue increase between 2015 and 2017. Its sequencing platform allows large populations of cells to be separated and analyzed with high resolution. The company is also developing a technology to study how cells are positioned in 3D which could be used to see how tumors grow and expand.

Another contender is the alliance between two giants, Bio-Rad Laboratories and Illumina. They announced in January 2019 a joint single-cell sequencing solution that streamlines the whole workflow. Mission Bio, a spin-off from the University of California San Francisco is selling a single-cell sequencing platform that targets clinical applications with a lower price per run compared to its competitors.

Despite the rapid market growth, the use of single-cell sequencing is so far limited to a narrow circle of initiates. Over the past years, academic facilities have started providing single-cell sequencing services to researchers. For example, the technology is used at the Institut Curie in Paris to study cancer cells.

More recently, companies have started working in this area, often using technology initially developed in academia to identify new biomarkers and drug targets. All seem to have a common goal: personalized medicine.

Research on most diseases related to genetic or epigenetic mutations could benefit at some point from single-cell sequencing. There are already scientific publications applying this technology in microbiology, neurology, immunology, digestive and urinary conditions.

Among them, oncology is probably the most promising and mature application. Previously, bulk analysis of cells from a tumor biopsy only gave information on the predominant type of cells. In contrast, single-cell sequencing can provide information about other tumor cells, which might be resistant to a certain therapy and result in a relapse after the first line of treatment.

This technique is highly sensitive and is able to detect rare cell types from limited amounts of sample material. Combined with technology to isolate circulating tumor cells from a blood sample, single-cell sequencing can be used to select patients in personalized medicine trials.

IsoPlexis is one of the very few companies with an advanced program to apply single-cell sequencing to proteomic studies looking at the role of protein expression in cancer. The company is developing a technology to measure the levels of a dozen molecules secreted by immune cells that are primed to recognize and attack a tumor. Last year, this was used to predict, for the first time, the response that a person with blood cancer will have to CAR T-cell therapy. The company claims that it could also be applied to cancer patients treated with checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy.

Single-cell sequencing can also be combined with CRISPR gene editing to make elaborated large-scale studies of how a genetic modification affects cell behavior. The Austrian company Aelian Biotechnology is combining both techniques to observe gene functions with single-cell resolution, establishing a new paradigm for next-generation CRISPR screening. This approach has broad applications, including identifying novel drug targets or studying unknown mechanisms of actions of drugs.

Either for research or clinical diagnostics, single-cell sequencing remains challenging and is far from being used routinely. One of the main reasons is that single-cell collection is tricky, as the amount of sample material used is low but the analysis still requires a sufficient amount of cells to make sure all cell types are represented. The time it currently takes to complete an experiment is another major concern. Companies developing single-cell sequencing technology need to work on creating streamlined and optimized workflows that limit these problems.

Although experimental methods for single-cell sequencing are increasingly accessible to laboratories, handling the data analysis remains challenging. There are currently limited guidelines as to how to define quality control metrics, the removal of technical artifacts, and the interpretation of the results. With larger experiments, the data analysis burden increases.

Single-cell data requires the analysis of millions of data points for a single tumor, said Andrei Zinovyev, who leads a machine learning project focusing on single-cell data analysis at the Institut Curie in Paris.

There are many software tools developed by academics, mostly available in open source. However, their use is limited to a small community of researchers that have been able to successfully combine advanced bioinformatics and statistical skills with in-depth knowledge of the biological systems they study. Companies such as 10X Genomics and Fluidigm also provide software tools, but this area remains in its infancy and gold-standard tools have yet to be developed.

For single-cell analysis to spread to a broader community, user-friendly analysis tools are needed. In this area, Swiss startup Scailyte is developing an AI-based solution to discover biomarkers from single-cell data, analyzing complex datasets in just a few hours. The US startup Cellarity is also working in this area, seeking to combine single-cell sequencing with artificial intelligence and CRISPR gene editing.

The use of single-cell sequencing is limited due in part to its high cost. Most of the instruments and reagents needed are costly. For someone looking to incorporate single-cell sequencing into their laboratory, 10X Genomics for example sells its instruments for about 70,000. A typical run, including cell isolation and sequencing, can cost anywhere between 3,000 and 10,000 per sample, depending on the number of cells.

Due to the high cost, it is becoming popular for laboratories with the equipment to offer single-cell sequencing and analysis as a service. The US company Mission Bio is tackling this issue, aiming to reduce the cost to between $1,000 and $2,000 for a typical run.

As is mostly the case in any area with a huge market potential, intellectual property can cause conflict, which can negatively impact the development of new technologies. For example, back in 2015, Bio-Rad sued 10X Genomics for patent infringement, and the jury determined it would have to pay 21M in damages. Furthermore, 10X Genomics could not sell their products to new customers, being therefore limited to servicing historical clients with all past and future sales subject to a 15% royalty.

Several months later, the US company Becton Dickinson also sued 10X Genomics. After that, the company decided to build a new piece of equipment to reinforce its intellectual property position. In September, 10X Genomics countersued Becton Dickinson.

The single-cell sequencing market experienced a growth spike between 2017 and 2018 due to several key stakeholders entering the market. But we are only at the beginning. According to most business reports, this market is expected to see a 300% growth, reaching a size of almost 1.4B by 2023.

Competitors are innovating at an insane rate to take the lead, but there is still a long way to go before single-cell sequencing can be widely used. A huge amount of investment would be needed to fully unlock its potential for research, drug discovery, and diagnostics. Nonetheless, the field has momentum and once it tackles the challenges, there is no doubt that single-cell sequencing will pave the way to breakthrough innovations in personalized medicine.

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Single-Cell Sequencing: Paving the Way for Precision... - Labiotech.eu