CEAT project for improving ovarian cancer diagnosis, treatment shows promise

Porvair Sciences reports, due to promising results, it has agreed with its collaborative partners to make additional investment in the CEAT project which aims to dramatically improve the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer.

In the initial stage of the CEAT (Cluster for Epigenomic and Antibody Drug Conjugate Therapeutics) project - Porvair Sciences supplied its proprietary Chromatrap^® bead-free Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) technology to help University of Swansea researchers develop new epigenomic profiling approaches to enable advances in drug development and patient profiling.

So far the project has had success in developing bespoke chemo-resistant OC cell lines, optimized the Chromatrap^® kits for 3D spheroid analysis along with biochemical analysis on AFM (Atomoic Force Microscopy). The expansion to the project will allow current microrheology assessment of disease phenotype spheroid culture models and high resolution binding kinetics to support selective targeting and drug mechanism of action.

Our further involvement in this exciting project will be now to launch the optimized ChIP kits for 3D spheroid analysis. These novel ChIP kits will enable assessment of disease phenotypes on spheroid culture models thereby providing a valuable insight to understanding drug target mechanisms and selectivity".

Amy Johnson, Business and Technical Development Manager, Porvair Sciences

The CEAT  project is now valued at over £5m, principially led by the Swansea University Medical School, and in collaboration with 6 industrial partners, (Porvair Sciences Ltd, Bruker UK, Cytiva UK, Axis Bioservices and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The project is focused on developing  advanced drug technologies for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Key aims of the CEAT project are creation of novel epigenetic drugs using cross cutting technology approaches; development of techniques to identify patients that will benefit from targeted epigenetic and non-epigenetic drug treatments and generation of novel antibody drug conjugates (ADC's) effective against ovarian cancer.