On July 28, 2015 Purdue Research Foundation reported that Federal funding will help further develop technology discovered at Purdue University and licensed by a life sciences startup that could help cancer researchers with improved target detection and the discovery of novel pharmaceuticals (Press release, Purdue Research Foundation, JUL 28, 2015, View Source [SID:1234506728]).

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Tymora Analytical Operations has received a two-year SBIR Phase II grant of $900,000 from the National Cancer Institute to further develop its pIMAGO technology. The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Anton Iliuk, chief technology officer, said the pIMAGO technology allows for a better understanding of what type of cancer a patient has and which therapy could be the most effective in treating the cancer.

"In a typical screening, gene mutations are regarded as the primary indications of what type of cancer an individual has. The problem is that there are often hundreds or thousands of mutations present, most of which do not progress to cancer," he said. "pIMAGO analyzes the outcomes of these mutations, which is protein phosphorylation, or the addition of a phosphate group to a protein. Examining this change on different cancer targets can often pinpoint the molecular fingerprint of the cancer, which could be used to select therapy in a more personalized manner."

The National Cancer Institute funding will develop the technology’s ability to look at a more comprehensive signaling network, rather than only one or a few proteins.

"We can examine what other pathways are active and try to target those," he said. "This could be particularly useful to check how well a drug is working, such as in cancer resistance, and to pinpoint the primary reasons for relapse and make new therapy decisions."

The pIMAGO product line has been developed through funding of other SBIR grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Tymora Analytical Operations licenses intellectual property discovered by W. Andy Tao through the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization. Tao is the company’s chief scientific officer and a professor of biochemistry at Purdue University. The company is based at Purdue Research Park of West Lafayette.