Luminex Licensed Technologies Partner Spotlight: Oncimmune®

For high-throughput autoantibody studies, Oncimmune scientists rely on xMAP® Technology

There is growing recognition that autoantibodies—antibodies directed against someone’s own proteins—represent an exciting class of biomarkers important for revealing interactions between the immune system and cancer.

Many pharmaceutical companies and research institutions looking to study autoantibodies turn to a research service company with deep expertise in this area: Oncimmune®, a rapidly growing UK-based company with about 80 employees in offices around the world. Its ImmunoINSIGHTS® autoantibody profiling service is widely used for immuno-oncology, autoimmune disease, and infectious disease studies.

For this work, Oncimmune scientists have developed a proprietary, immunogenic protein library containing nearly 9,000 antigens; these cover more than 95% of known human antigens. In order to perform high-throughput studies using this library, they have adopted the highly multiplexed, bead-based xMAP® Technology. In addition, Oncimmune has joined Luminex’s Licensed Technologies Group, giving their team access to helpful resources and support, plus the latest features and instrument upgrades.

It’s all in the details

Elena Rupieper, a team leader at Oncimmune who oversees the use of xMAP Technology there, works closely with pharmaceutical and research partners to analyze autoantibody profiles. The studies her team runs include as many as 2,000 blood samples from patients and focus on a specific scientific question, such as how autoantibody profiles change in cancer patients treated with checkpoint inhibitors. Her team has also studied COVID‑19 infections, revealing important information about the immune response triggered in those patients and the elevated levels of autoantibodies seen months after infection, even for patients with mild or no symptoms.

“[xMAP Technology] allows us to rapidly increase our knowledge about immune-related adverse events and disease-modulating therapeutics.”

— Elena Rupieper, Team Leader at Oncimmune
Analyzing thousands of antigens across hundreds or thousands of samples requires a truly high-throughput pipeline. “xMAP Technology is very important for achieving the level of multiplexing that is necessary for the number of antigens required to get a detailed overview about the patient samples,” Rupieper says. “It allows us to rapidly increase our knowledge about immune-related adverse events and disease-modulating therapeutics by giving us the opportunity to scale up the number of biomarkers we study.”

Target capacity reached

xMAP Technology enables the simultaneous interrogation of as many as 500 analytes from a single low-volume sample. At Oncimmune, Rupieper’s team has incorporated xMAP Technology into a robust pipeline with liquid handling robots to achieve their target capacity.

“Other technology platforms don’t give us the flexibility and throughput,” says Cameron Barnard, chief business officer at Oncimmune. He also appreciates the level of detail that xMAP Technology allows Oncimmune scientists to report back to clients. “I’ve worked in analytical testing for my entire career and I’ve never seen the kinds of results and enthusiastic customer response we get from these studies,” he adds.

To learn other ways Oncimmune is using xMAP Technology, read their poster:
“Multiplexed Autoantibody Profiling of Patients with Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors or Platinum‑Based Chemotherapy”View the Poster on Autoantibody Profiling

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Buyer’s Guide: How to Choose the Right Multiplex Technology for Your Needs

Confused by the wide selection of multiplexing options? This eBook can illuminate the differences between them to help you make an informed decision

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As anyone who has worked in a lab knows, most scientists eventually reach a breaking point when it comes to singleplex immunoassays. Especially when other options, particularly multiplexing, make it possible to generate more data—quickly and at lower cost—all while consuming less sample. But once you experience your “I’ve had it up to here with single-analyte assays!” moment, what’s next?

We’ve got you covered

We just released the fourth edition of Select Science’s buyer’s guide that covers all things multiplex. It’s an educational (not promotional) resource where the authors break down which types of experiments are best suited for multiplexing, how different multiplexing technologies work, and how to determine which option is the best fit for your needs.

Resources like this are important because there are so many multiplexing options to choose from: spotted arrays, bead arrays, microfluidic reactions, and more. The guide explores the details of each—how they work, which chemistries they use, and key applications, among other features—to help you make sense of the choices available without having to dig through the literature for weeks.

For example, included is SMARTS tool for comparing products and choosing the multiplex technology that best suits your needs:

  • Sensitivity: Can the multiplexing assay detect low-abundant analytes, especially after dilution?
  • Multiplexibility: Once you’ve performed your single analyte measurements and established an assay range, does the platform offer multiplexing capabilities? If so, what is the plex number?
  • Actionable results: Can the assay provide you with results you can use, (i.e., within the assay range even with small sample volumes)?
  • Reproducibility: Does the assay yield reproducible results for multiple users?
  • Time to results: How long does it take to read a 96-well plate in the multiplexing system of your choice? If you were to perform triplicates or increase the number of analytes, does the technology guarantee minimal need for repeat runs so you can save time?
  • Specificity: How specific is the antibody pair to your protein of interest? A specific detection only recognizes the analyte of interest and no other analytes or antibodies.

For more insight and an in-depth breakdown of the options out there, check out the “How to Buy Multiplexing Technology” eBook (2021, 4th edition)!

Download and read the “How to Buy Multiplexing Technology eBook”

Download Now

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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New Year, New Cookbook: Check Out This Great Resource for xMAP® Technology Users

The fifth edition of the xMAP Cookbook offers new protocols and application examples, with additional tips, tricks, and insight from our experts

We’re delighted to announce the latest edition of our xMAP® Cookbook is live and available for download! As a vetted collection of methods and protocols for developing multiplex assays on the xMAP platform of your choice, the Cookbook is a valuable resource for xMAP veterans and new users alike.

xMAP Technology has been a game-changer for scientists around the world, but for those who are unfamiliar with it, we try to provide a primer on multiplexing and how it can benefit scientists across research fields. As a bead-based multiplexing tool, it can be used for both proteomic and genomic applications, and xMAP in particular helps reduce sample and reagent volumes while generating more information.

With xMAP, you can analyze up to 500 targets in a single run

For technology that’s so different from standard, single-analyte immunoassays, we’ve found that our customers really like to have a guide showing them the many different ways it can be used. That’s why we created the original xMAP Cookbook back in 2013. Since then, we’ve regularly updated this handy collection of protocols to include updated tips and tricks based on what we see in our labs, but also what our customers are doing in the field.

All xMAP Cookbooks include detailed instructions for designing, creating, optimizing, and validating your xMAP assays, plus assay development guides for various applications, a detailed list of common xMAP buffers, and a comprehensive list of equipment needed to run xMAP assays.

In our just-released fifth edition, we’ve added some exciting new material—plus tips and protocols for our newest xMAP platform. Here’s a quick look at some of the highlights:

  • Examples of dual reporter applications for use with our new xMAP INTELLIFLEX® System
  • Relative reporter intensities for both reporter channels
  • New protocols for developing assays for pneumococcal polysaccharides
  • Dried blood spot extraction protocol

Download the 5th edition of the xMAP Cookbook today, or, if you want more info about xMAP Technology before you download, visit our website!

Read the full Cookbook here.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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Webinar: Designing a COVID-19 Vaccine Efficacy Assay with the xMAP INTELLIFLEX® System

In Chicago, scientists employed the dual reporter channel to generate more data without incurring more costs

We always enjoy seeing xMAP® assay users talk about their experience with the technology, but it’s even more exciting to get feedback on our newest platforms and features. In a recent webinar, Dr. Jeffrey Borgia from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago spoke about his team’s experience developing a high-throughput serology assay for monitoring the immune response to COVID-19 vaccines using the xMAP INTELLIFLEX® System.

If you don’t have time for the full webinar, check out these quick highlights.

When it comes to COVID-19, testing has been a shifting landscape

Dr. Borgia pointed out that test developers like his team have had to work around the types of tests needed during the pandemic evolving multiple times over the last two years. At the start of the outbreak, the focus was initially to identify and contain current infections. Then there was a shift to antibody tests to help determine whether people had already been infected. After that, there was a need for vaccine efficacy assays that could quantify someone’s immune response to either COVID-19 vaccination or infection. More recently, demand has grown for assays to identify breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals and to identify waning immunity that might indicate when it’s time for a booster shot.

Serology assay, version one

Early in the pandemic, Dr. Borgia’s team developed a serological assay designed to evaluate antibodies to four antigens using xMAP tech: the spike, nucleocapsid, matrix, and envelope proteins. The test they designed could monitor both neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies, and importantly, required less than 2 µL of sample. Paired with a FLEXMAP 3D® System, the automated workflow permitted testing more than 1,000 samples per day. Dr. Borgia and his team validated the test on both plasma and dried blood spot samples.

Validation studies in more than 1,000 samples showed that the assay featured “near-perfect sensitivity and specificity,” Dr. Borgia said. “Our overall accuracy was over 99 percent.”

Vaccine efficacy testing with xMAP INTELLIFLEX

Later, the team created a separate serology assay to quantify the immune response to COVID-19 vaccination. By this time, the lab had adopted a beta version of the xMAP INTELLIFLEX® System, which provides enhanced multiplexing capabilities with the addition of a dual reporter channel. This feature makes it possible to evaluate two isotypes at a time—such as IgG and IgM—and generate twice as much data from the same sample and reagent volumes as any other xMAP assay.

The new assay focused on antibodies to the spike, nucleocapsid, and matrix proteins, analyzing IgG, IgM, and IgA for each. Dr. Borgia described a number of validation and optimization steps for the new instrument, allowing the team to identify the appropriate incubation time and evaluate intra-assay and inter-assay precision.

What they were really interested in, of course, were the results from the longitudinal monitoring of immune responses to vaccination, particularly among immunocompromised patients. The data they generated supports the recommendation for booster shots, and showed that a third dose helped trigger as much protection in immunocompromised individuals as two doses did in people with a normal immune system.

The xMAP INTELLIFLEX System allowed the team to generate high-quality results at higher throughput and lower cost, Dr. Borgia also noted.

As xMAP INTELLIFLEX systems ramp up next year and beyond, we’re really looking forward to seeing all of the innovative ways the xMAP community put the new dual reporter feature to good use.

For more information about this study, check out the webinar!

Watch the full webinar here.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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2021 Year in Review: On Why We Do What We Do

After another challenging year, we’re grateful that the work we do here helps

In more precedented times, 2021 might’ve been described as a banner year for Luminex. Despite the persistent challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic, our teams delivered critical assays and reagents, scaled production of our COVID-19 offerings, expanded our team, services, and facilities, and supported scientists and healthcare providers across the world. We did this and more—in the field, from our international offices, from our homes—all while transitioning into a new, integrated company with DiaSorin following our acquisition back in July.

While there is much to celebrate, we’re aware that against the backdrop of the rising toll of this outbreak—now, day 590 since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global public health threat,1 with more than 276 million confirmed cases and 5.4 million deaths worldwide2 plus new variants to be cautious of—the close to a successful year for our business is hardly a silver lining for what we’ve lost to this pandemic. The last two years have flown by so quickly, most of us haven’t had time to grieve our losses. We’ve adapted to life at a new pace, and there hasn’t been much time to reminisce over our pre-pandemic lives.

There is still hope, however: there have also been 8.5 billion vaccine doses administered across the globe, with much of Europe, China, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and Canada leading the way with over a 70% vaccination rate.3 Testing and treatment options have also come a long way in just two years—seeing the healthcare community and scientists from all over the world develop solutions at this pace has been incredibly humbling.

As a biotech company, most of us are just grateful that the work we do here helps. It helps improve diagnostics (which helps improve health outcomes), it helps support researchers investigating disease mechanics or developing therapeutics, it helps reduce bench time for busy lab techs. This is why we do what we do.

Forging a path forward

As COVID-19 persevered, our teams worked to increase production of the xMAP® SARS-CoV-2 Multi-Antigen IgG Assay (EUA and RUO) to our portfolio.

Included in our launches, we also added MagPlex® Monitoring Microspheres to our catalog, making good on our promise to continue to deliver tools that can help our customers take their research to the next level.

We also launched xMAP INTELLIFLEX® Systems this year, which build on more than 25 years of xMAP innovation. This was a significant milestone for us—the technology behind xMAP was foundational for our company. It was nearly three decades ago when, rumor has it, a group of interdisciplinary scientists met at a restaurant in Texas and sketched out the idea that would become xMAP Technology on a napkin, and we’ve come a long way since then.

xMAP INTELLIFLEX offers sensitivity, an open architecture design that supports both commercially available kits and custom assays, and, importantly, a second reporter channel. The second reporter allow users to acquire data about two parameters per target protein or nucleic acid, on up to 500 targets per well, effectively doubling your data. We’re really excited to see what the xMAP community will be able to do with this capability as we continue to roll these systems out in 2022.

Supporting our community through custom services

We’re so confident in what xMAP Technology can do for our customers in fact that we’ve also expanded our custom immunoassay services and the LuminexPLORE Lab. Backed by a team of scientists skilled in all things multiplexing across multiple applications, in addition to custom assay development services, the LuminexPLORE Lab supports assay optimization, conversion, validation options, and more. With their combined knowledge, no project is too big or too small for our team of experts.

Notably, as we look ahead to 2022, the LuminexPLORE team will move into a new and improved lab space in our Austin headquarters, enabling them to expand their capabilities and throughput. These services can provide a lot of time and resource-saving benefits, so we’re looking forward to hearing what the LuminexPLORE team and the scientists we collaborate with accomplish in the coming year.

A unique combination of specialists

DiaSorin’s acquisition of our company in July marked another big milestone in our 26th year. As experts in immuno- and molecular diagnostics, the merge with a larger, multi-national company will bring the best of both businesses to our customer bases. We’re fortunate to have built a strong community over the years, and with our combined expertise, we look forward to developing additional tools and solutions across the academic, biopharmaceutical, and clinical spaces. How we can help just got better.

Tackling COVID-19 and beyond

We may not know exactly what next year has in store, but as we shared at the close of our first year of the pandemic—we’re dedicated to supporting our customers and partners as long as this lasts. Whether it’s SARS-CoV-2 testing solutions, comprehensive diagnostic panels, or research systems, reagents, and tools, we’re here for you however you need it. We’ll be here when this is over, too.

Warm wishes from our families to yours. Happy holidays from Luminex!

References:

  1. Opening Remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, 11 March 2020. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. WHO (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19—11-march-2020.
  2. COVID-19 Dashboard. The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html.
  3. Vaccination progress across the world. The Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Internet). Accessed 2021 Dec. Available from: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/international.

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How Multiplexing Can Support Vaccine Development

xMAP® Technology supported the development of HPV vaccines, continues to provide key results in after-market studies

Vaccine development is traditionally a complex and lengthy process. It requires a clear and in-depth understanding of the variants of a given disease-causing organism and their modes of pathogenesis, as well as the antigens they express. Successful efforts require a high-quality assay to detect all relevant variants in a timely manner in order to understand immunogenicity, among other critical factors.

It’s no secret that conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) are time and labor-intensive. For vaccine development, ELISAs simply cannot provide the throughput needed. Thankfully, xMAP® bead-based multiplexing technology offers a flexible and customizable platform to support both gene and protein expression assays. And unlike traditional technologies that can only measure one or a few biomarkers, researchers have the ability to easily scale the number of biomarkers measured—from 1 to 500 analytes—and the ability to customize assays for genotyping, protein expression profiling, gene expression profiling, and more.

Supporting vaccine development when and how it’s needed

A noteworthy example of how scientists have used xMAP Technology in vaccine development comes from the development of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines. More than a dozen HPV genotypes are associated with cervical cancer, necessitating a highly robust multiplex assay for the vaccine development process.

Two of the three globally licensed HPV vaccines—Gardasil®, a quadrivalent vaccine (4vHPV), and Gardasil® 9, a 9-valent (9vHPV) vaccine, both from Merck & Co—were developed with the support of xMAP-based assays. xMAP Technology enabled the measurement of type-specific antibodies to several HPV genotypes simultaneously, and have been collectively used to measure titers in thousands of individuals.

This technology has powered development of the initial vaccines from virus-like particles, facilitated clinical trials, assisted in immunobridging studies, and provided insight into the vaccines’ long-term effects through immunogenicity and epidemiological studies. xMAP-based assays have also been used for drug registration, market release, and post-marketing surveillance.

In these two white papers, we explore the development efforts for both the Gardasil® and Gardasil® 9 vaccines. To learn more about the specific xMAP assays used for Gardasil® development, including how they were used in large studies, how they supported targeted studies of special populations, and more, check out these great resources:

Although the vaccines have long since been approved, xMAP multiplex assays continue to power studies examining long-term vaccine safety and efficacy, along with the worldwide impact of vaccination against HPV-related diseases. To learn more about how xMAP Technology can be used for vaccine development and more, check out the xMAP Cookbook!

Check out the xMAP Cookbook to design your own assays.
For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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RD-Biotech Expands Antibody and Immunoassay Services with xMAP® Technology

Joining Luminex’s Licensed Technologies Group enhanced the company’s capabilities

Our Licensed Technologies Group represents a who’s who of companies delivering impressive results by applying Luminex’s xMAP® Technology to a wide variety of experiments. One of our newest partners is RD-Biotech, a service provider based in France. The talented RD-Biotech team helps clients with services in immunology, molecular biology, and cellular engineering.

Small team, big impact

Founded in 2002, the company works primarily with pharmaceutical and biotech companies interested in outsourcing pre-clinical or clinical tasks for their research and development programs. While the team is small—with a staff of 40—its impact is sizable: RD-Biotech has 200 clients on their roster.

“We are very active with pharmaceutical and biotech companies,” says CEO Philippe Dulieu. “We do what they cannot do internally.” Common services RD-Biotech handles include antibody development, engineering, and manufacturing; conjugating antibodies to beads; and immunoassay development.

New ventures

Recently, Dulieu and his colleagues got a request from a pharmaceutical client working on vaccine development: could they conjugate antibodies to beads for use with xMAP analyzers? The team got started with small batches of beads and quickly ramped up as the project expanded.

Now, RD-Biotech works directly with Luminex as a Licensed Technologies Partner, which Dulieu says gives his team better access to reagents and customer support. They’re already looking to expand their service offerings around xMAP Technology, and purchased a Luminex® 200™ System, which has allowed them to utilize xMAP kits and deliver results. “We have been able to develop our business with this technology,” Dulieu says.

If you’re interested in learning more about how xMAP Technology can improve your multiplex immunoassays, visit our website.

Learn more about the benefits of becoming a Luminex Partner here.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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Getting Double the Data from Less Sample: An xMAP INTELLIFLEX® Dual Reporter Assay in Action

Using the new INTELLIFLEX System’s second reporting channel, our scientists teamed up with experts at the University of Rochester to design, optimize, and validate their SARS-CoV-2 antibody assay

If you’ve been eager to see how the new dual reporter channel works on the xMAP INTELLIFLEX® DR-SE System, you’re in luck! In a recent JoVE video, we walked through this process using a multiplex assay designed to detect multiple antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Here are some of the highlights!

The assay was designed using xMAP® Technology and is based on work from a team of scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center. To ensure robust results, they validated the assay with thousands of samples, making it possible to reliably detect the levels of two immunoglobulins in a single reaction while measuring the generation of potential SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies.

To help the team take the next step, Senior Field Applications Specialist Dr. Stephen Angeloni and other Luminex scientists worked with them to adapt the assay to the latest xMAP platform—the INTELLIFLEX DR-SE System. This new system offers a dual reporter channel that allows users to generate twice as much data from analytes in the sample, reducing the sample volume and time required to produce the information needed. This unique capability made it possible for the scientists to adapt the assay to detect IgM antibodies in addition to the original IgG responses in a single reaction. The video also demonstrates, for the first time ever, how the assay can be easily modified to measure the generation of potential neutralization capabilities of these immunoglobulins.

“To our knowledge, this is the first example of a bead-based multiplexing protocol that uses two reporter signals to simultaneously measure two results per analyte,” says Dr. Sherry Dunbar, Luminex’s Senior Director of Global Scientific Affairs, in the introduction to the video. “While this dual reporter method is specific for antibody isotyping, it could be adapted to measure other analyte pairs, such as post-translational modifications or free versus bound drug forms.”

The rest of the video follows Dr. Angeloni, who demonstrates the dual-reporter assay and key elements of the process, such as optimization. It includes clear, step-by-step instructions to help current xMAP users follow along throughout the protocol.

The results of Dr. Angeloni & his teams’ efforts are reported in the JoVE video presentation: “A Rapid, Multiplex Dual Reporter IgG and IgM SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization Assay for a Multiplexed Bead-Based Flow Analysis System.” To learn more, check it out on JoVE!

Watch the video here.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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AMLI 2021: xMAP® Technology Posters Cover COVID-19 and Biotinylated Beads

Check out highlights from this year’s conference posters using bead-based multiplexing technology

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This year, the Luminex team was honored to attend the annual meeting of the Association of Medical Laboratory Immunologists (AMLI) which was held in our hometown of Austin, Texas. In addition to catching up on the latest findings about immunity as well as immune and autoimmune disorders, we presented several posters, and we’re excited to share the summaries with our readers:

Conversion of a SARS-CoV-2 IgG Titer and Neutralization Assay to Detect IgG and IgM Titers and Neutralization in a Single Reaction

We teamed up with scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center to redesign a multiplex assay for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies for use on the new Download the Poster

Using xMAP Technology to Rapidly Develop and Iterate Antibody Assays for Viral SARS-CoV-2 Proteins: A Feasibility Study

This poster reports efforts from scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center along with Luminex’s Heather Darby, who worked together to rapidly design assays for the COVID-19 pandemic. “As new challenges continue to emerge during the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, testing that can rapidly deliver tailored and relevant results will be critical to outbreak surveillance,” they report in the poster.

The team used xMAP Technology to develop multiplex assays for detecting SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. In this feasibility study, they evaluated a number of variables—such as protein coupling concentration and serum sample dilution factor—and developed and validated the assay in just one week.

“This assay is ready for further characterization and validation for implementation as a research tool, enabling serological surveillance at a population scale for exposure to SARS-CoV-2, as well as its variants,” the scientists conclude.

Download the Poster

Effect of Streptavidin-R-Phycoerythrin Conjugate Size on Fluorescence Signal in Biotinylated Bead Assays

Scientists from Luminex and Agilent Technologies reported on this project, which aimed to assess the signal given off by different sizes of streptavidin-r-phycoerythrin (SA-RPE) conjugates. “Size differences in SA-RPE conjugates have the potential to affect the fluorescence signal obtained in different assay setups,” they note.

They found that the use of a longer linker with biotin-coated beads leads to stronger signals with SA-RPE, regardless of size. In addition, larger conjugates of SA-RPE produced more signal in certain situations.

“Overall, the optimal SA-RPE conjugate for a given assay depends on the assay chemistry,” the team writes. “Users should test different SA-RPEs to determine what works best for their assay.”

Download the Poster

For the latest developments from our colleagues and collaborators + all things xMAP, check out our blog series!

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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Developing a New Multiplex Assay for Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer

Luminex Licensed Technologies Partner Spotlight: EDP Biotech

Early detection makes a real difference in outcomes for cancer patients. But for cases of colorectal cancer, detecting tumors in the earliest stages has been virtually impossible. The team at EDP Biotech is committed to changing that by developing a simple, accurate, blood-based diagnostic test for biomarkers of colorectal cancer. They’ve chosen to build this assay on xMAP® Technology due to its multiplexing capabilities and minimal sample requirements. We spoke with CEO Eric Mayer and Lead Scientist Jason Liggett to learn more about EDP Biotech and their exciting new assay.

What does EDP Biotech do?

EDP is a medical device and diagnostics company dedicated to beating colorectal cancer. We are working on our first multiplex assay to aid in early detection. Most of the other testing options available today are expensive, highly invasive, or simply messy—patients don’t want to take the test. We want to build on our experience in colorectal cancer to offer a simple blood test. For our staff, this is a personal mission.

How would early detection make a difference?

If colon cancer is caught early, the patient outcome is drastically improved. Five-year survival rates just plummet as you move from early stage to later stages. Most of these cancers are caught in late stage, when five-year survival is less than 15%. Most patients aren’t getting screened, even when they have increased risk.

How are you using xMAP® Technology?

The xMAP platform offered a really attractive option for screening a large number of biomarkers quickly while consuming a small amount of serum. We started with a large number of biomarkers and then narrowed those down to a dozen or so that we’re interested in putting into a single kit. We worked with MilliporeSigma for the custom development and manufacturing reagents for the single kit. We started working with the MAGPIX® System, and as we became more familiar with the technology, we moved up to FLEXMAP 3D® and paired it with an automated liquid handler for higher throughput. The technology has allowed us to grow and expand as our knowledge increased.

What will the EDP colorectal test look like when it’s ready?

We are hoping to launch the test next year. The final product will be a combination of the xMAP-based assay with our proprietary machine learning algorithm which takes those quantified values and converts them into a yes/no answer to help physicians determine whether they should recommend a follow-up colonoscopy to their patients.

How has your experience as a Licensed Technologies Partner been?

As a small company looking for a very robust and high-throughput technology that’s very sensitive, working with Luminex has been a good fit. There are also a lot of other Licensed Technologies Partners out there willing to help us. It feels like being part of a really tight-knit community of experts.

What’s next for the EDP team?

We are a small diagnostics company, and during the pandemic we responded quickly to help our community with COVID testing. As the world begins to return to its “new normal,” we will return to all hands on deck for the colorectal cancer assay. Based on the success of this test, though, we do have some other tests in the pipeline for early detection of other solid-tumor cancers and infectious diseases.

You can view a full list of our partners by visiting our website, or if you’re interested in becoming a partner, you can learn more here.

Learn more about the benefits of becoming a Luminex Partner.

For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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