The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Bionaut will also collaborate to identify new biomarkers in tumor cells that are affected by Bionaut’s lead cancer compounds.
Bionaut’s compounds will be tested against a panel of tumor cell lines and measure biomarkers that are induced or suppressed at the NCI. The institution will also evaluate the compounds for their therapeutic potential to alter metastasis by testing for suppression of invasion/migration in vitro with several highly metastatic cell lines. Increased metastasis of tumor cells is often associated with the ability of these cells to survive stress.
Thomas Klein, chief operating officer at Bionaut, spoke of the collaboration in terms of bringing together different lines of expertise, adding: “This collaboration is also highly relevant to the FDA’s initiatives to identify biomarkers associated with cancer to monitor experimental treatments and predict clinical outcome.”