Bioinformatics provider CLC bio in Aarhus, Denmark, with AROS Applied Biotechnology, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, and the Institute of Pathology at Aarhus University Hospital, announced a collaboration to develop a solution for large scale use of formalin fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue in molecular analyses. FFPE tissue samples are invaluable resources for profiling gene expression and studying a variety of diseases.
The project seeks to develop a complete platform for selecting appropriate FFPE samples, choosing the optimal sequencing technology, and subsequently assembling and analyzing the high-throughput sequencing data. The main applications will be molecular diagnostics research and re-analysis of preclinical trials where drugs have failed despite relatively high rates of positive responses.
The project is budgeted to $US5 million, half of which will be funded by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation.
The need for this platform arises from difficulties faced by both academia and industry in finding sufficient high quality fresh tissues. With the proposed platform, researchers are expected to have access to more samples than can be collected in traditional fresh tissue biobanks. Also, these samples can be linked to patient data through numerous health care, disease, and population registries, providing opportunities to boost research in disease mechanisms and rescue drugs from failure.
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