How Lunaphore aims to simplify spatial biology

Spatial biology specialist Lunaphore (Tolochenaz, Switzerland) recently announced a collaboration with the pathology department at Massachusetts General Hospital to develop an in vitro diagnostic (IVD) that assesses the sensitivity of solid tumors to poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors.

“Lunaphore is based on a technology that I developed for my Ph.D. at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne,” said Ata Tuna Ciftlik, the company’s CEO. When earning his doctorate in biomedical microsystems from 2008 to 2013, there was “no talk of spatial biology,” he added. “The goal was to extract spatial multiomic data from tumors.”

Inspired by next-generation sequencing (NGS), which combines microfluidics and optics, Lunaphore created a chip technology to extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors while transforming simple assays into multiplex spatial biology.

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  • March 16, 2022
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Lunaphore and Massachusetts General Hospital partner on spatial biology-based cancer diagnostics

Life sciences company Lunaphore (Lausanne, Switzerland) will collaborate with the Pathology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital to create an in vitro diagnostic (IVD) to evaluate the sensitivity of solid tumors to poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors.

Lunaphore’s chip technology can extract spatial proteomic and genomic data from tumors.

The project will first focus on ovarian, breast and prostate cancers.

PARP inhibitors work by preventing cancer cells from repairing damaged DNA.

COMET 6-plex on breast cancer. Image courtesy of Lunaphore.

“The DNA repair pathway called homologous recombination is of clinical interest as tumors with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) have been found to be sensitive to PARP inhibitors,” said Diego G. Dupouy, chief technology officer of Lunaphore, in a statement. “However, current methods of identifying HRD in tumors have been varie…

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  • February 22, 2022
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