Original text in French here.

The program PDC CLARA (CancŽrop™le Lyon Auvergne Rh™ne-Alpes) has announced the support to 3 projects leaded by regional companies, cellenion being one of them. The program provides financial support to projects aiming to transfer innovations from oncology research groups brought by companies based in the Auvergne Rh™nes-Alpes area.

Cellenion has presented its project PELICAN, based on cellenONE¨ technology and the expertise in immuno-oncology, cancer genomics and very high throughput sequencing techniques (NGS) of the Centre LŽon BŽrard (CLB). These two entities have decided to join forces around the PELICAN project to bring the power of these technologies to patients as quickly as possible while developing this know-how and skills in the Auvergne Rh™ne Alpes region. The objective is to demonstrate that the cells contained in the pleural fluid of cancer patients can be exploited by analysing their transcriptomic profile and developing models derived from patients to demonstrate their clinical value.

“cellenONE¨ technology is unique in its precision and versatility. It allows the selective and automated isolation of a wide range of cells from various biological samples. It is this ability that has made it possible to consider the isolation of cells directly from pleural effusions for direct transcriptomic analysis or after treatment in the presence of drugs. The PDC CLARA program will make it possible to implement this project, which was conceived several months ago by Professor Saintigny, and will demonstrate the diagnostic, prognostic and theragnostic potential of these samples,” says Franois Monjaret, Project Manager at Cellenion.

The success of this project will have an impact on several levels:

• identification of the source of cancer in patients, and their stratification for targeted cancer therapies
• the study of the resistance mechanisms that are developing against treatments, which are proving to be crucial in the case of targeted cancer treatments, particularly immunotherapie
•  the identification of markers to predict the evolution of the cancer that causes pleural effusion, but also the risk of recurrence of the effusion itself
•  the identification of new therapeutic or palliative targets

All of these levels are looking for a common interest: fill the gap between study and diagnostic tools, participate in the emergence of more efficient and less invasive diagnostic techniques and thus improve the remission rate of patients. More broadly for the AuRA region and France, this program, in line with the France Genomics 2025 initiative, is part of the development needed to improve patient care and control healthcare costs.