SAN DIEGO, March 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — A major bottleneck for realizing personalized medicine in cancer is interpreting the clinical importance of tumor-specific genomic alterations. To address this, Cypher Genomics, Inc., the leading genome informatics company, today announced the release of a new software update to automate the interpretation of sequencing data from cancer genomes. Cypher provides rapid, automated, genome interpretation at-scale for clinical trials, diagnostic development, population studies and disease gene identification. With this update, Cypher’s MantisTM technology will now provide rapid insight into how different genetic variants may impact cancer progression and therapeutic effectiveness.
A first look of the new update will be available at Cypher’s booth 1131 at the 2015 Annual Clinical Genetics Meeting (ACMG), which is being held March 24 to 28 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Clinicians have had few resources to prioritize the clinical relevance of the large number of genetic alterations seen in tumor samples,” explained Ashley Van Zeeland, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Cypher Genomics. “Cypher’s goal is to determine the biological and clinical context as well as the significance of all the genetic variants found in tumor tissues so we can inform better clinical decisions.”
As sequencing costs decrease and large-scale tumor sequencing efforts increase, researchers and clinicians need a comprehensive and automated technology to manage the enormous influx of data in a timely fashion. Large targeted panels and genome- and exome-wide approaches will also necessitate automated solutions over current manual approaches. Cypher’s Mantis can provide automated interpretation of tumor variants with the relevant evidence of associations to provide insights into drug-gene or drug-variant interactions and diagnostic or prognostic endpoints. Ultimately, the goal is to understand which genomic alterations are driving a patient’s cancer in order to select or develop therapies to halt progression.
“By applying Cypher’s automated Mantis technology to determine which genetic alterations can be used for diagnostic, prognostic or drug selection, we hope to relieve the bottleneck in cancer genomics and accelerate personalized medicine for cancer patients,” said Dr. Van Zeeland.
The Mantis update will also provide a summary of somatic and germline variants for single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and small indels as well as resolve difficult to classify variants of unknown significance (VUS). Mantis will accept either tumor-normal variant calls or somatic only. The resulting information will also provide pharmacogenetic impact for anti-neoplastic agents as well as additional high priority variants.
About Cypher Genomics
Cypher Genomics is a leading genome informatics company offering a highly accurate, rapid and robust interpretation software solution for users of human genome sequencing. The proprietary, automated genomic interpretation platform allows clinical laboratories to tune Cypher Genomics’ market leading sensitivity and specificity profiles to develop molecular tests for diagnostic and prognostic use and pharmaceutical companies to discover biomarkers from whole genome sequence data in sample sizes typical of early stage drug development studies. Through MantisTM, the genome interpretation software as a service offering, and CoralTM, a biomarker discovery service, Cypher Genomics can improve health care and reduce costs by facilitating improved diagnostic accuracy and earlier interventions, optimizing therapeutic approaches and reducing adverse drug reactions. Cypher Genomics is located in San Diego, California.
For more information about Cypher Genomics, visit www.cyphergenomics.com and connect with us on Twitter @cyphergenomics.