CombiMatrix Corporation (Nasdaq:CBMX) today announced Dr. Amit Kumar, President and CEO, will present at the DxRx Summit: Nucleic Acid Diagnostics + Therapeutics in Boston, Massachusetts on May 13th at 11:30 am EDT. The title of Dr. Kumar's presentation is "Non-Invasive, Array-Based Screening for Cancer."
Dr. Kumar will present the latest data regarding CombiMatrix's Comprehensive Cancer Array (CCA), a test that is being developed to for the non-invasive screening of multiple cancers at once. While the presentation will not be broadcasted over the web, Dr. Kumar's complete presentation will be available on the company's website subsequent to the presentation.
"We remain pleased with the development progress for this array-based test and new data to be presented at this conference will demonstrate continued positive progress," said Dr. Kumar. The abstract for the presentation is noted below:
Abstract:
Cancer-patient survivability has been shown to be greatly enhanced by early diagnosis of cancer. For some types of cancer, there are no existing screens for early detection. For others, such as prostate cancer and PSA tests, there are early detection screens, but they are not particularly effective in distinguishing between indolent and aggressive forms of cancer. For others, such as colon cancer and colonoscopies, there are effective tests, but they are invasive enough that many people forgo them. An effective test that could screen for all of the most prevalent cancers based only on a blood sample would be a significant breakthrough for healthcare. We show here that a simple assay that detects serum miRNAs can be used to distinguish between cancerous and non-cancerous states and also can be used to classify different cancers and thus could be used to tailor medical care to an individual's needs.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNA species that play critical roles throughout cellular development and regulation. miRNA expression patterns taken from various tissue types often point to the cellular lineage of an individual tissue type, thereby being a more invariant hallmark of tissue type. Recent work has shown that these miRNA expression patterns can be used to classify tumor cells, and that this classification can be more accurate than the classification achieved by using messenger RNA gene expression patterns. One aspect of miRNA biogenesis that makes them particularly attractive as a biomarker is the fact that they are maintained in a protected state in serum and plasma, thus allowing the detection of miRNA expression patterns directly from serum.
CombiMatrix Corporation is a diversified biotechnology business that develops proprietary technologies, including products and services in the areas of drug development, genetic analysis, molecular diagnostics, nanotechnology and defense and homeland security markets, as well as in other potential markets where our products and services could be utilized. The technologies we have developed include a platform technology to rapidly produce user-defined, in-situ synthesized, oligonucleotide arrays for use in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins. This technology has a wide range of potential applications in the areas of genomics, proteomics, biosensors, drug discovery, drug development, diagnostics, combinatorial chemistry, material sciences and nanotechnology. Other technologies include proprietary molecular synthesis and screening methods for the discovery of potential new drugs. Combimatrix Molecular Diagnostics, Inc. ("CMDX"), our wholly owned subsidiary located in Irvine, California, has developed capabilities of producing arrays that utilize bacterial artificial chromosomes, which also enable genetic analysis. CMDX functions primarily as a diagnostics reference laboratory.