Author: snijderlab.org

EXALT-1 study @ Cancer Discovery

snijderlab.org
Pharmacoscopy-based Functional Precision Medicine

Our landmark EXALT-1 clinical study (clinical trial NCT03096821) was just published in Cancer Discovery. Here, we could demonstrate for the first time that functional precision-oncology can improve patient outcome in a prospective interventional trial. For 56 patients suffering aggressive blood cancers, their next treatment was adapted to their personal drug screening (pharmacoscopy) results, and we followed them on average for another 2 years. The results:

“30 Patients (54%) demonstrated a clinical benefit of more than 1.3-fold enhanced progression-free survival compared with their previous therapy. Twelve patients (40% of responders) experienced exceptional responses lasting three times longer than expected for their respective disease.”

Kornauth et al., Cancer Discovery, 2022

Prof. Dr. Tony Letai, professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana Farner Cancer Institute, has written a great accompanying commentary as well as review on the topic.

Also check out the News article at the ETH Zurich!

Exscientia buys Allcyte

snijderlab.org

Allcyte has been acquired by Exscientia for 60M USD, merging Exscientia’s amazing AI-driven drug discovery capabilities with Pharmacoscopy’s AI-driven personalized drug screening platform – Exciting times ahead!

Read more here:

Exscientia spends SoftBank’s cash in bid to edge out AI rivals

Pharmacoscopy trial presented at ASH2020

snijderlab.org

The final analysis of the succesful EXALT-1 interventional trial will be presented at the 62nd annual meeting of the American Society for Hematology by Prof. Dr. Philipp Staber from the Medical University of Vienna!

In the EXALT-1 trial, Pharmacoscopy has been used to guide the treatment of patients with advanced aggressive hematological cancers. A preview of the final analysis is available online here: Treatments guided by Pharmacoscopy led to improved progression free survival for 30 out of 56 patients!

Pharmacoscopy @ EHA25

snijderlab.org

We’re excited to see our Pharmacoscopy technology so well represented at the biggest annual European hematology meeting!

EHA25 Annual Meeting

Giulio Superti-Furga, research director of the Research Center for Molecular Medicine, introduced the European Hematology Association to Pharmacoscopy in a plenary session of the 25th annual EHA meeting. Additionally, Berend presented how deep neural networks can bring pharmacoscopy to the next level for personalized systems medicine, in a session by the Scientific Working Group for Precision Hematology.

SNF Professorship extension

snijderlab.org

We are thrilled to announce that the Swiss National Science Foundation has granted us the full extension to our ongoing SNF Professorship! We are extremely thankful to the SNSF for this continued support.

SNF Professorships are among the most prestigious SNF funding for young principle investigators. The project continues to systematically analyze the molecular and cellular systems that determine why people can respond differently to medications.

ETH Zurich Research Grant

snijderlab.org

We’re thrilled to announce that the ETH Zurich has awarded us with an ETH Zurich Research Grant! ETH Grants are a competitive ETH-internal funding programme to promote world-​class research with the potential to result in fundamental new knowledge or technologies and exciting discoveries.

The grant will allow us to investigate the differences in behaviour and morphology of human inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) observed in different iPSC lines derived from the same human donor, as well as differences observed between iPSCs from different donors. The project builds on unique expertise by postdoc Sohyon Lee in the lab.

SNF Sinergia Grant

snijderlab.org

We are thrilled to announce that the Snijder Lab has been awarded an SNF Sinergia grant, together with the labs of Prof. Dr. Inti Zlobec at the University of Bern, Dr. Maria Anisimova at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, and Dr. María Rodríguez Martínez at IBM Research. Collectively we will work to advance our understanding of colorectal cancer.