The joint effort by Arbor Vita and Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) is directed at developing a more specific diagnostic for cervical cancer screening.
The new cervical cancer diagnostic is said to be one of the first applications of Arbor Vita’s PDZ platform. PDZ protein domains organize critical cellular processes including cell signaling and cell-cell contacts. PDZs, targeted by many pathogens, play a key role in human papillomavirus’s (HPV’s) ability to cause cancer. The new diagnostic exploits this PDZ interaction specifically to detect HPV infection that has progressed to precancer and cancer.
Peter Lu, CEO of Arbor Vita, said: “BD has been a pioneer and long-standing leader in protein-based diagnostics. We look forward to building on this collaboration toward the successful introduction of a novel PDZ-based cervical cancer diagnostic screening test.”