NuProbe and AcornMed Reach a Strategic Collaboration to Develop Minimal Residual Disease Detection Products with BDA technology

HOUSTON and BEIJING, April 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- NUPROBE GLOBAL, a molecular diagnostics company based in Shanghai, China and Houston, Texas, has reached a strategic collaboration agreement with AcornMed Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (AcornMed). The two companies have agreed to work together to develop products for minimal residual disease (MRD) detection in genitourinary tract cancer and hematological cancer using NuProbe's blocker displacement amplification (BDA) technology.

NuProbe's patented BDA technology is a unique and novel PCR-based enrichment method. Through innovative thermodynamic design in the PCR amplification cycles, BDA technology effectively reduces the wild-type amplification efficiency and enlarges low frequency mutation signals. As a result, the BDA technology allows for the selective amplification of low abundant sequence variants (such as SNVs and indels) in a background of wildtype DNA, thereby substantially improving mutation detection sensitivity. BDA technology is broadly compatible with various molecular diagnostic platforms including PCR, first-generation capillary sequencing, next-generation high-throughput sequencing, third-generation single-molecule sequencing, and mass spectrometry of nucleic acids. For more information on BDA, visit NuProbe's website.

"BDA technology enriches low-abundance variants by preferentially amplifying variants against wild-type DNA, which remarkably reduces data on wild-type sequences when using methods such as NGS. Therefore, the number of reads needed is decreased by over 50-fold, leading to a significant cost reduction for clinical genetic testing while improving detection sensitivity," said Dr. Junfeng Luo, Vice President of R&D at NuProbe. "BDA technology has wide applications including liquid biopsy testing, rejection monitoring after organ transplantation, and microbial infection. It has been validated in clinical laboratories in China and the United States."

Dr. Feng Lou, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of AcornMed, commented, "AcornMed is one of the few companies in China that ranks top in both the solid tumor and blood cancer industries. We have introduced more than 30 products for hereditary cancer testing, companion diagnostics for targeted treatment and immunotherapy, and tumor diagnostic stratification. Furthermore, we are actively engaging in the fields of early diagnosis and screening, prognostic evaluation, and real-time monitoring for multiple cancer types. NuProbe's technology can increase the NGS mutation detection sensitivity by 100-fold, which is very suitable for MRD detection products."

The two companies plan to collaborate on developing testing methods for mutation detection using repeatedly collected urine or plasma samples to monitor treatment efficacy and guide further treatment strategies.

"AcornMed is the only company with both a proprietary genomic database in genitourinary tract tumors and the most comprehensive genomic database of blood malignancies in China," Yingshuang Chai, Chief Executive Officer of NuProbe, added.  "Combining their resources with our highly sensitive BDA technology, we expect to bring revolutionary products to the oncology field."  

"We look forward to collaborating with NuProbe to explore more translational applications. This collaboration will support us to apply our sequencing technology to broader areas of clinical oncology," stated Dr. Shanbo Cao, Chief Executive Officer of AcornMed.

About NuProbe Global

NuProbe is a cutting-edge genomics and molecular diagnostics company with revolutionary molecular diagnostic technologies to improve the sensitivity of sequencing mutations and copy number variations by over 10-fold. NuProbe has sites in Houston, USA, Shanghai, China and Suzhou, China. NuProbe's vision is to offer affordable, timely, and accurate disease state information to enable precision medicine and improve patient outcomes.
Official website: http://www.nuprobe.com.cn and http://www.nuprobe.com 

About AcornMed 

AcornMed, also known as AcornMed Biotechnology Co., Ltd., is a high-tech enterprise guided by principles of full-process system innovation. Headquartered in Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, AcornMed has established two testing and R&D centers in Beijing and Tianjin, with a total area of 5,000 square meters. With an independently developed genomic big data analysis platform, the company provides precision medical solutions for clinical oncology with genomics as its core. As one of the few NGS medical service companies leading both the solid tumor and blood cancer industries, AcornMed has established unique brand advantages in lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancer, genitourinary tract cancer and hematologic malignancies. They have been endorsed by many clinical oncologists and laboratory professionals and have served more than 500 hospitals.
Official website: http://www.acornmed.com/

CONTACT: Rachel Reed, [email protected]

SOURCE NuProbe

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