New Publication Highlights the Power of the Mission Bio Tapestri Platform to Monitor Therapy Response and Measure Potential Cancer Relapse

Mission Bio, Inc., the pioneer in high-throughput single-cell DNA and multi-omic analysis, today announced the publication of a study demonstrating the power of its Tapestri® Platform to detect clonal evolution and residual leukemic cells in pediatric T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL). The study, published in Blood, was led by Jan Cools, Ph.D. at VIB & KU Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), and underscores the power of single-cell analysis to improve treatment strategies and prognosis based on clonality and detection of minimal residual disease (MRD).

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood leukemia. The T-cell subtype (T-ALL) is the more rare and aggressive form of ALL, and patients who relapse have limited therapeutic options and a poor prognosis. While bulk sequencing has characterized the mutational landscape of T-ALL, the clonal heterogeneity underlying disease progression, therapy response, and disease relapse has not been well-described at the single-cell level. 

To obtain a comprehensive, high-resolution view of the clonal evolution of T-ALL, researchers at VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology leveraged Mission Bio’s Tapestri Platform and a Tapestri custom DNA panel targeting mutations across 110 genes implicated in T-ALL on longitudinal samples collected at diagnosis and multiple times during treatment. The Tapestri data corresponded 100 percent to bulk sequencing data and revealed subclonal mutations undetected by bulk methods. Data also provided insights into the complexity of mutation co-occurrence and order of mutation acquisition, and how that impacts disease progression. 

Moreover, Tapestri was able to detect remaining cancer cells during treatment, providing an alternative to existing methods of measuring minimal residual disease (MRD). “We are excited at the potential to use single-cell DNA analysis to track T-ALL through the course of disease and treatment,” said group leader Cools. “Being able to detect rare but clinically relevant clones earlier will help inform improved patient-specific therapy decisions for better patient outcomes.”

“We are inspired by the work of the VIB team in describing the utility of single-cell analysis to detect leukemic cells during and after therapy, especially for aggressive pediatric cancer,” said Charlie Silver, Co-founder and CEO of Mission Bio. “Minimal residual disease is a critical endpoint for clinical trials and drug development pipeline. We look forward to additional studies leveraging single-cell analysis to improve the prognosis and diagnosis of patients with T-cell leukemia.” 

This publication follows Mission Bio’s recent Series C round of funding and its expansion into single-cell multi-omics, launching the industry’s first and only capabilities to detect DNA and protein changes simultaneously from the same cell on its Tapestri Platform. The award-winning technology has been adopted by Agios, LabCorp, Onconova Therapeutics, and other companies for more efficient clinical trials.

The full peer-reviewed study can be found here. To learn more about Mission Bio and how it’s moving precision medicine forward, visit missionbio.com.

About Mission Bio
Mission Bio delivers targeted solutions for high-impact applications with the Tapestri Platform. The Tapestri Platform is the industry’s first and only single-cell multi-omics platform, enabling genotype and phenotype from the same cell and precise detection of heterogeneity in disease progression and treatment response. Application areas include oncology blood cancers, solid tumors, and genome editing validation.

Spun out of research at the University of California, San Francisco, Mission Bio is headquartered in South San Francisco, California.

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