German biobank and cancer database company Indivumed announced an initiative in collaboration with A*STAR's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) in Singapore to build an Asian-centric Cancer Database (ACD) to support clinicians in academic and translational research.
According to the Singapore Cancer Registry Annual Registry Report 2015, cancer is the leading cause of death in Singapore with about 35 people diagnosed with cancer, on average, every day.
“Indivumed's global access to biospecimens, as well as its professional standards for tissue collection, processing, and clinical data, provide unique opportunities to understand phenotypic effects in cancer patients,” said Prof. Wanjin Hong, executive director of A*STAR's IMCB in a press release announcing the deal. “We are pleased to forge a strong clinical research partnership with Indivumed in Singapore and participate in building this global multiomics cancer database that contributes to better healthcare outcomes.”
Working together, Indivumed and IMCB will create the ACD as a multiomic dataset that also contains phenotypic data derived from clinical information of consenting patients.
According to Indivumed, the ACD is the first-of-its-kind, integrating data such as genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, precision proteomic, and digital histopathology data together with extensive clinical information. It will become a part of Indivumed’s global cancer database called “IndivuType” with all the data generated from biospecimens collected under Indivumed's stringent proprietary SOPs.
Indivumed's collaboration with IMCB builds on an agreement inked earlier this year between Indivumed and A*STAR's Research Support Centre, to perform proteomic and phosphoproteomic analysis of tissue samples from Indivumed's unique biobank.
“A*STAR's IMCB in Singapore is one of the world's leading research institutions, and Singapore represents a kind of ‘mini-Asia’ adding important ethnical aspects to our global cancer database ?IndivuType,’” said Prof. Hartmut Juhl, founder and CEO of Indivumed. “The outstanding scientific expertise and infrastructure of IMCB and the clinical expertise of Singapore clinics provide a unique opportunity to expand our global phenotypic cancer database, opening novel avenues and treatment modalities to fight this devastating malady.”
