Pathogenica CSO Speaks at IBC Life Sciences Drug Discovery & Diagnostic Development Week

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Aug. 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Pathogenica, Inc. announced that the Company's Chief Scientific Officer, Graeme Doran, Ph.D., is speaking today at the IBC Life Sciences Drug Discovery & Diagnostic Development Week, in San Francisco.

During the conference, the only event on the application of next generation sequencing technology for research, diagnostic development, and patient care, Dr. Doran will speak on "Next Generation Sequencing & Genomic Medicine." He will present the development of Pathogenica's next generation sequencing assays for clinical diagnostics for greater accuracy at reduced cost. He will focus on Pathogenica's Human Papillomavirus sequencing panel, and demonstration of HPV identification from ThinPrep clinical samples.

"This is a significant demonstration of the utility of our assay for clinical specimens in combination with NGS," said Yemi Adesokan, Ph.D., Pathogenica's CEO. "Our work so far demonstrates that NGS can be applied to routine HPV screening specimens to precisely identify viral sub-types relevant to therapeutic decision-making. The Pathogenica DxSeq probe panels achieve comprehensive coverage of >30 high and low risk HPV strains from a single assay."

The Pathogenica test identified the presence of several HPV sub-types amongst the samples tested (HPV 16, 18, 31, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 67, 68, 97), and was able to identify multiple strains infecting a single individual. HPV plays a causative role in a number of cancers, and multiple infections may be of clinical significance and correlate with higher-grade lesions. Sequencing's ability to rapidly identify and quantify multiple infections is a significant advantage for clinicians to understand the impact of these viral subtypes.

In his talk, Dr. Doran will also preview forthcoming clinical applications of next generation sequencing for viral and bacterial genotyping.

Dr. Doran received undergraduate and D.Phil degrees from the University of Oxford, and has worked as a postdoctoral scientist on non-coding RNA biology and RNA sequencing at the David H. Koch Center for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School. He has contributed book chapters, multiple peer-reviewed publications, presentations at international conferences, and currently serves as associate editor for the Journal of RNAi and Gene Silencing, and the Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine. He joined Pathogenica in 2010.

Pathogenica is preparing for CLIA approval and a commercial launch of its diagnostic tests in 2012.

About Pathogenica

Pathogenica, based in Cambridge, MA, was founded in 2009 to pioneer commercial applications of pathogen sequencing. Pathogenica applies next generation DNA sequencing technology for rapid multiplex identification of pathogens, drug resistance genes, and toxins in patient samples. The founding scientific advisory board (SAB) is comprised of distinguished scientists in the field, including George Church, Harvard Medical School; Ron Davis, Stanford University; W. Ian Lipkin, Columbia University; Andrew Onderdonk, Harvard Medical School; and Kun Zhang, University of California.

Pathogenica's high throughput pathogen detection system is expected to enable rapid and highly sensitive detection of a wide variety of pathogens from patient samples using just a common assay protocol. http://www.pathogenica.com

Contact:
Daniel Jackson
908-433-2628
djackson[at]pathogenica.com

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SOURCE Pathogenica, Inc.