Pressure BioSciences announces presentations on advantages of PCT

Pressure BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq:PBIO) ("PBI" and the "Company") today announced that five presentations on the advantages of pressure cycling technology (PCT) in the preparation, processing, identification, and quantification of proteins were made at last week's annual meeting of US HUPO (Human Proteomics Organization) in Denver, Colorado. Presentations on PCT were made by scientists from industry (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Target Discovery, Inc., and PBI), government (FDA), and academia (Universite´ de Montréal and Harvard School of Public Health). Data were presented on the use of PCT in the areas of protein analysis and biomarker discovery in influenza (including swine flu), ovarian cancer, membrane proteins, and isolation of intact mitochondria. The presenting scientists concluded that PCT was a powerful, innovative tool that offered clear advantages to the researcher doing proteomic research, including quality, speed, reproducibility, ease-of-use, and cost savings.

Dr. Alexander Lazarev, Vice President of R&D for PBI, said: "We are excited to see the growing adoption of PCT by academic, government, and industry scientists working in the field of proteomics. We believe that innovative, cutting-edge techniques such as PCT promise to re-invigorate the power of proteomics in the discovery of important biomarkers of disease. We further believe that our patented PCT-dependent instruments and consumables will play an increasingly vital role in helping to identify new molecular markers of cancer and other diseases, which in turn, should result in the development of important new diagnostics, protocols, treatments, and cures for infectious and chronic diseases."

Highlights of each of the five presentations are summarized below.

Dr. Thibault and Dr. Bonneil of the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada, and their colleagues Dr. Biringer, Dr. Saba, and Dr. Huhmer of Thermo Fisher Scientific, studied the effects of PCT on the enhancement of three key areas of proteomic analysis by mass spectrometry: proteolysis cleavage, reaction time, and protein sequence coverage. Mass spectrometry is considered by many as the most powerful analytical tool available today for the identification of proteins, and is the instrument of choice by most scientists focused on the study of proteomics. The authors concluded that the digestion of proteins by PCT resulted in clear advantages compared to conventional proteolytic digestions in terms of reproducibility and sequence coverage for membrane proteins and total cell extracts. Also, PCT digestion of complex or simple protein mixtures yielded a controllable number of missed cleavage sites, a potential benefit for ETD ion activation.

Dr. Alterman and his team at the Tumor Vaccines and Biotechnology Branch, Division of Cellular and Gene Therapies, CBER, FDA, are working on the development of improved methods for influenza virus research and vaccine manufacturing, including H1N1 ("swine flu"), H5N1, and H3N2. Their results demonstrated that mass spectrometry-based analysis of an influenza vaccine allowed rapid and accurate identification of each virus strain and suggested a potential new approach for vaccine preparation and subsequent quality analysis. The authors used PCT in a critical processing step of their suggested influenza vaccine manufacturing protocol, and indicated that PCT was chosen because of its speed, ease-of-use, and excellent reproducibility.    

Dr. Ivanov and his team from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) are working on the development of optimized methods for the lysis ("breakage") of cells and the digestion of proteins, two important steps in the preparation of samples for scientific evaluation. PCT was chosen as the primary method to be evaluated. The researchers reported that PCT improved protein identification and quantitative analysis, and demonstrated that such improvements could be crucial to the discovery of new important biomarkers, particularly from the membranes of cells.

Dr. Schneider and his colleagues at Target Discovery, Inc., are working on the development of a new treatment guidance diagnostic for ovarian cancer patients. To that end, TDI scientists reported on their success in using PCT with specialized chemical reagents to optimize the extraction of intact functional proteins from cell membranes, a difficult yet vital step in their work. The TDI scientists concluded that PCT was an extremely powerful and versatile technology that could offer advantages in a wide variety of important research applications, including general sample preparation, the facilitation and acceleration of key chemical reactions, and access to specific types of proteins that have simply not been routinely available to scientists in the past.

Dr. Gross and her colleagues at PBI and the HSPH are working on the development of a new, automated method for the extraction of intact mitochondria from a variety of tissues. Defects in mitochondrial function have been linked to many diseases, including cancer, Type II diabetes, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's dementia. To help develop therapies and cures for these diseases, studies need to be performed on intact mitochondria extracted from various tissues, a difficult problem at the present time. The researchers reported on a new application of PCT for gentle tissue lysis and subsequent extraction of intact mitochondria. The resulting automated method was reported to offer clear advantages over manual homogenization methods, including better reproducibility and the ability to process multiple samples simultaneously in an unattended fashion.