Personalis Launches Report Providing In-Depth Characterization of Tumor Neoantigen Peptides

November 15, 2016
Supplements Its ACE ImmunoID NGS Services for Immuno-Oncology

MENLO PARK, CA, UNITED STATES - Nov 15, 2016 - Personalis, Inc., a company focused on genomic solutions for immuno-oncology, today announced it is expanding its services for clinical trials and research by launching its Neoantigen Discovery Report for its ACE ImmunoID service.  The ACE ImmunoID service continues to provide best in class, validated exome and transcriptome sequencing with patented ACE technology and calling of expressed somatic variants through combined DNA and RNA analysis. The ACE ImmunoID service has now been extended to include a Neoantigen Discovery Report which predicts peptides which can be generated from each expressed somatic variant and then characterizes those.  This characterization includes prediction of MHC Class I & II binding affinities based on the patient’s HLA alleles, and similarity to both self and known antigens.

The Neoantigen Discovery Report for ACE ImmunoID provides researchers with a seamless approach to identifying and characterizing potentially immunogenic peptides unique to an individual patient’s cancer. Using the comprehensive characterization of this new report, customers can then prioritize peptides for the development of personalized vaccine therapies.  The elements of antigenic potential, projected by this new report, may also assist customers working to understand clinical responses to checkpoint inhibitors, modulators, CAR-T and other immuno-therapies.   By combining best-in-class and proprietary tools, Personalis’ Neoantigen Discovery Report aides in the rapid evaluation and prioritization of samples and peptides based on the client’s needs.

Personalis CSO, Richard Chen said, “With Neoantigen Discovery Report we are aiming to provide our customers with a comprehensive view of the neoantigens in a tumor, and the information needed to begin to rank them based on their potential to be immunogenic.  This starts with the highest quality, validated data as input into the neoantigen analytics pipeline enabled by our ACE Exome and Transcriptome sequencing and variant calling, but now includes both best-in-class and proprietary approaches to annotating neoantigens. Our reports also provide a high level of potential customization for our clients. We recognize that each organization we work with requires some unique outputs to help drive their product development and so have built in flexibility to meet their needs from discovery to market.”

Personalis ACE ImmunoID

Next-generation sequencing is increasingly used to support immuno-oncology studies. However, typical NGS cancer offerings fall short for immuno-oncology in a number of areas including gaps in gene coverage, narrow gene footprint, limited validation studies, and lack of integrated RNA analysis. Personalis addresses these issues with proprietary Accuracy and Content Enhanced (ACE) technology which optimizes sample prep and targeted capture in difficult to sequence regions such as regions of high-GC content. In addition, RNA data from the same sample, targeted to the same gene set, is used to quantify gene expression-critical for immune-oncology applications-in addition to detecting gene fusions and confirming allelic expression.  Our ACE technology provides substantially more uniform coverage in the RNA domain, just as it does with DNA.

Launched in 2015, Personalis ACE ImmunoID is based on ACE sequencing, informatics and content technology platform. Using ACE ImmunoID with paired Tumor-Normal samples and the standard dual extraction of DNA and RNA, a comprehensive view of the expressed somatic variants present in an individual sample is produced.   ACE ImmunoID features leading edge informatics pipelines supporting both RNA and DNA analysis as well as tumor normal analysis to aid in the detection of neoantigens.

About Personalis, Inc.

Personalis, Inc. (www.personalis.com) is a leading precision medicine company focused on advanced NGS-based clinical diagnostic, clinical trial and research services for cancer and inherited genetic disease.  Personalis also provides DNA sequencing and data analysis of human genomes.  The Personalis ACE Exome and Transcriptome technology is designed to obtain the most comprehensive and accurate tumor molecular profile for immuno-oncology applications. The company’s clinical laboratory is GCP compliant, CLIA licensed and CAP accredited.