Affymetrix Announces Cancer-Profiling Collaboration
01 November 2011 - 12:00AM
Business Wire
Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDAQ:AFFX) today announced that the company
has entered into an agreement with the Broad Institute to chart the
genomic changes involved in more than 20 types of cancer as part of
the Broad’s work in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The agreement
will involve the processing of 13,500 cancer samples on the
Affymetrix® Genome-Wide Human SNP 6.0 Array, a widely used platform
for genotyping and studying copy number variation (CNV) and somatic
events in tumor samples. The SNP Array 6.0 will also determine loss
of heterozygosity (LOH), an important genomic change that indicates
a loss of normal function that cannot be detected using traditional
cytogenetic methods such as FISH or comparative genomic
hybridization (CGH).
“High resolution and a hybrid SNP-CNV array design make the SNP
Array 6.0 ideal for studying the complex cancer genome,” said Andy
Last, Chief Commercial Officer at Affymetrix. “Mapping this disease
using SNP 6.0’s range of analysis tools—from upfront sample control
to downstream sequencing validation—will profoundly improve our
understanding of genetic drivers associated with these
cancers.”
With an investment of $50 million each from the National Cancer
Institute (NCI) and National Human Genome Research Institute
(NHGRI), TCGA began in 2006 as a three-year pilot. Following its
initial success, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced
in September 2009 an investment of $275 million over the next two
years of this five-year program. To date, TCGA has achieved
comprehensive sequencing, characterization, and analysis of the
genomic changes in samples from brain, ovarian, and prostate
cancers.
“By using this technology, we are able to map many types of
changes in the cancer genome, including gains and losses of genetic
material, at high resolution and in a cost-effective manner,” said
Matthew Meyerson, a senior associate member at the Broad Institute,
a TCGA principal investigator, and director of the Center for
Cancer Genome Discovery at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
“Furthermore, we are able to evaluate cancer specimen features,
such as sample integrity and tumor cell purity, which are highly
useful adjuncts for next-generation DNA sequencing.”
There are at least 200 forms of cancer and many more subtypes.
Each of these is caused by errors in DNA that cause cells to grow
uncontrolled. TCGA aims to identify the changes in each cancer’s
complete set of DNA─its genome─and to understand how such changes
interact to drive the disease. The ultimate goal of the project is
to lay the foundation for improving cancer prevention, early
detection, and treatment.
To date, TCGA has confirmed that an atlas of changes could be
created for specific cancer types. It has also shown that a
national network of research and technology teams working on
distinct but related projects could pool the results of their
efforts, create an economy of scale, and develop an infrastructure
for making the data publicly accessible. Importantly, it has proven
that making the data freely available would enable researchers
anywhere around the world to make and validate important
discoveries.
About Affymetrix
Affymetrix technology is used by the world's top pharmaceutical,
diagnostic, and biotechnology companies, as well as leading
academic, government and nonprofit research institutes. More than
2,100 systems have been shipped around the world and more than
23,500 peer-reviewed papers have been published using the
technology. Affymetrix is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., and
has manufacturing facilities in Santa Clara, Cleveland, Ohio, and
Singapore. The company has about 900 employees worldwide and
maintains sales and distribution operations across Europe, Asia,
and Latin America. For more information about Affymetrix, please
visit http://www.affymetrix.com.
Forward-looking statements
All statements in this press release that are not historical are
"forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of
the Securities Exchange Act as amended, including statements
regarding Affymetrix' "expectations," "beliefs," "hopes,"
"intentions," "strategies," or the like. Such statements are
subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results
to differ materially for Affymetrix from those projected. These and
other risk factors are discussed in Affymetrix' Form 10-K for the
year ended December 31, 2010, and other SEC reports for subsequent
quarterly periods.
NOTE: Affymetrix, and the Affymetrix logo, are trademarks or
registered trademarks of Affymetrix, Inc.
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