Tessellate BIO in historic cancer research initiative
They have unveiled a multi-year collaboration to accelerate discovery of synthetic lethal precision therapies to address alternative lengthening of telomeres ‘ALT’ cancers.
The objective is to advance the understanding of the prevalence of ALT across tumour types and the genetic factors involved and so accelerate the development of precision medicine tools and new cancer therapies.
ALT is a mechanism that some cancer cells use to maintain the integrity of their telomeres during cell division and is essential for their unlimited replicative potential.
Tessellate BIO is a preclinical stage biotech with a focus on novel Synthetic Lethality approaches; CMRI is a leading Australian paediatric medical research institute and Omico is an organisation that unites more than 50 world-class cancer institutes in Australia and New Zealand.
A large genomically-characterised patient sample cohort has been collected by Omico as part of the MoST (Cancer Molecular Screening and Therapeutics) program and has already allowed the partners to explore ALT prevalence in primary tissue samples utilising the C-Circle Assay – the expected gold standard for establishing ALT status.
While ALT has been detected in 10-15 per cent of all cancers, it has primarily been studied in cancers with ALT prevalence exceeding 50 per cent, e.g., soft tissue sarcomas and osteosarcomas.
Initial results of the Tessellate BIO – Omico – CMRI collaboration are already revealing the presence of ALT in cancers that were previously not associated with this mechanism of telomere maintenance.
Tessellate BIO is developing novel therapies specifically targeting ALT cancers and the collaboration contributes to its leadership position in the field of ALT biology and drug discovery.
Dr Jurgen Moll, Tessellate BIO CSO, said: “The Omico-CMRI collaboration is instrumental for us to identify subpopulations of patients in different cancer indications that are driven by ALT and for which we are developing targeted drugs.
“In addition, we are excited about the opportunity to validate the C-Circle Assay to detect ALT+ cancer patients by screening a wide range of human cancer samples.
“This brings us closer to our aim: to make the C-Circle Assay the future gold standard for identifying these patients in the clinic – true precision medicine.”
Professor Roger Reddel, Director of CMRI and chair of the Tessellate BIO scientific advisory board, added: “Synthetic lethality has huge potential for the development of new cancer therapies but has so far been directed to only a small proportion of cancer types by targeting of Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD).
“This collaboration has been established to make a meaningful contribution to expanding lethality beyond HRD into ALT+ cancers through the development of new therapies and associated companion diagnostics.”