press-releases
Lunaphore and SIB awarded Innosuisse funding to develop innovative AI-based assay development tools
Date
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – December 14 – Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) today announced that Lunaphore, a Bio-Techne brand, and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, have been awarded Innosuisse funding for an innovation project. The collaboration aims to develop novel AI-based assay development tools for spatial biology on Lunaphore’s COMET™ to further accelerate the adoption of multiplex sequential immunofluorescence (seqIF™) technology in research.
Spatial biology utilizes detailed tissue analysis and intracellular interactions to enable profound insights in cancer biology, immuno-oncology, and other research fields. However, technical hurdles still stand in the way of spatial biology technologies entering clinics and becoming guiding tools for personalized therapies.
Lunaphore’s COMET product suite provides the first universal, end-to-end spatial biology solution, answering the needs of the scientific community in translational and clinical research. COMET is the only fully automated, high-throughput, hyperplex platform ensuring scalability and reproducibility without the need to conjugate primary antibodies, making panel design much more flexible and faster than any other hyperplex solution.
COMET’s seqIF approach is a valuable tool for advancing spatial biology adoption in the clinic. The collaboration will focus on automating standardized multiplex immunofluorescence (mIF) protocols, with the machine learning-based tools expected to enable researchers to further reduce mIF’s technical complexity and eliminate human-driven error. AI techniques developed by SIB will further enhance the platform’s automated approach, and aim to ensure the robustness of protocol transfer to virtually any tissue. In the long term, the project has the potential to improve human health and reduce healthcare costs by implementing automated leading-edge technology and accelerating the discovery of next-generation therapeutic interventions.
“The COMET platform is revolutionizing spatial biology by making spatial technologies more accessible to every lab,” said Kim Kelderman, Bio-Techne’s Chief Operating Officer. “With a focus on novel AI-based approaches for assay development, this scientific collaboration is a unique project that will empower scientists to reach their research goals more efficiently and develop the next generation of personalized therapies.”
“This new collaboration with Lunaphore is an excellent opportunity to showcase SIB’s expertise in AI to support innovation and state-of-the-art technological developments in the life sciences sector,” said Aitana Neves, Team Lead Data Science at the SIB Clinical Bioinformatics Group.
About Bio-Techne
Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) is a global life sciences company providing innovative tools and bioactive reagents for the research and clinical diagnostic communities. Bio-Techne products assist scientific investigations into biological processes and the nature and progress of specific diseases. They aid in drug discovery efforts and provide the means for accurate clinical tests and diagnoses. With thousands of products in its portfolio, Bio-Techne generated approximately $1.1 billion in net sales in fiscal 2023 and has approximately 3,200 employees worldwide. For more information on Bio-Techne and its brands, please visit https://www.bio-techne.com or follow the Company on social media at: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.
About Lunaphore
Lunaphore Technologies S.A. – a Bio-Techne brand, is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore provides solutions based on a game-changing chip technology that can extract spatial proteomic and transcriptomic data from tumors and other tissues, transforming any assay into multiplex spatial biology through a streamlined and easily integrated process. Lunaphore empowers researchers in immunology, immuno-oncology, and neuroscience to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and drug development. Lunaphore’s technology enables the identification of biomarker “signatures” with clinical relevance to support the development of diagnostic tools and streamline clinical trials, to ultimately improve patient outcomes. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit https://lunaphore.com.
About COMET™
COMET™ is the only fully automated, high-throughput, hyperplex platform ensuring scalability and reproducibility without the need to conjugate primary antibodies. COMET™ provides walk-away automation, integrating staining, imaging, and image preprocessing steps to obtain standard hyperplex images. COMET™ generates highly robust and reproducible data with full tissue preservation, allowing researchers to perform downstream modalities such as H&E or transcriptomics using the same slide. Its superior tissue profiling capabilities facilitate the analysis of 40 different spatial markers in each automated run on a tissue slide. In contrast to other spatial biology solutions, COMET™ works with off-the-shelf, label-free primary antibodies, making panel design much more flexible and faster than any other hyperplex solution. COMET™ works with regular glass slides from standard histology workflows; it is validated for human and mouse samples and is compatible with any other animal sample. The platform can be used for a wide range of research applications, allowing for a dramatic improvement in the understanding of disease pathology. To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/
About the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics
SIB is an internationally recognized non-profit organization, dedicated to biological and biomedical data science. Our data scientists are passionate about creating knowledge and solving complex questions in many fields, from biodiversity and evolution to medicine. They provide essential databases and software platforms as well as bioinformatics expertise and services to academic, clinical, and industry groups. SIB federates the Swiss bioinformatics community of some 900 scientists, encouraging collaboration and knowledge sharing. The institute contributes to keeping Switzerland at the forefront of innovation by fostering progress in biological research and enhancing health.
For further information on Lunaphore contact:
Lindsey Rodger, Head of Communications
Email: [email protected]
Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH)
David Clair, Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Development
612-656-4416
