{"id":687,"date":"2021-09-02T09:24:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T09:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blog\/?p=687"},"modified":"2021-09-02T09:24:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T09:24:00","slug":"grace-zhao-co-founder-avida-biomed-discusses-dual-methylation-and-mutation-analysis-from-a-single-input-of-plasma-cfdna-without-sample-splitting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/grace-zhao-co-founder-avida-biomed-discusses-dual-methylation-and-mutation-analysis-from-a-single-input-of-plasma-cfdna-without-sample-splitting\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Zhao, Co-founder, Avida Biomed discusses- \u201cDual methylation and mutation analysis from a single input of plasma cfDNA without sample splitting\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Grace Zhao is a co-founder of Avida Biomed, a biotech start-up specializing in genomic technology innovation for molecular diagnostics. At Avida, Grace co-invented Point-n-Seq,<\/strong> a new platform technology to advance liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer and other diseases. Utilizing the ultra-efficient, hybridization-based pre-amplification enrichment of target molecules from nanogram level cell free DNA (cfDNA), Point-n-Seq enables the first targeted mutation<\/strong> and methylation cfDNA dual analysis solution<\/strong> on market. Grace is currently the head of clinical research defining and executing company-wide clinical research strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before Avida, Grace co-founded AccuraGen, which\nfocused on accurate genomic solutions for cfDNA based liquid biopsy. AccuraGen\nhas developed a series of products for cancer molecular diagnostics for the\nChina market. As the director of research, Grace co-invented the core\ntechnology and managed a cross-continental research team, as well as the\ncompany\u2019s numerous clinical collaborations. Grace received her PhD from UCSD,\nfollowed by a postdoctoral training at Stanford School of Medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marketsandmarkets took this opportunity to pick her brains on the newfound developments in the fields of genetic sequencing and the ways this research has been of paramount importance in overcoming the challenges of the pandemic. She also discusses her own learnings in the field, their presentation at the Conference their take on the conference program.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question: <\/strong>What are the recent\nadvances in the genetic sequencing field and current challenges that need\nimmediate attention?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, a great deal of focus has been on\naccurate detection of methylation changes in the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)\nof a patient’s plasma. Finding these integral changes can have broad\nimplications for translational applications concerning human cancer, both with\nthe potential for early diagnosis including prognosis, as well as clinical\nmanagement. Targeted Methylation Sequencing (TMS) using next generation\nsequencing (NGS) is highly capable of interrogating a large number of biomarkers\nin parallel, which greatly increases the detection power compared to\ntraditional qPCR-based assays where only a few biomarkers can be analysed at a\ntime. Often, the sensitivity of conventional TMS is compromised by low\nefficiency in recovering methylation markers during processing, and in the case\nof very large panels, the specificity is further hampered by noisy non-specific\nmarkers. Another major deterrent of using the existing technology on the market\ncan be the cost of sequencing these large panels which cover more than ten\nmillion base pairs, along with the time requirements to perform these laborious\nprotocols. The high cost, high computational demand, and ultimately, the\nlimited sensitivity, becomes even more pronounced when using whole genome bisulfite\nsequencing as a part of the cancer detection strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Avida Biomed, we developed Point-n-Seq\u2122\ufe58a\nnovel and highly efficient DNA enrichment technology enabling\nthe first hybridization-based NGS analysis that uses a small, focused panel\n(10-1000 markers) with unprecedented sensitivity.  Our technology addresses the challenge\npresented by the current methylation analysis method, which is only compatible\nwith big capture panels, typically 50k base-pairs and above, in size.  The Point-n-Seq technology not only addresses\nthe demand of high sensitivity detection with small input (which is often the\nmain limitation of cfDNA), but also provides a briefer, more simplified\nworkflow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While liquid biopsy has broadly been used in\nclinical studies and diagnostic assay development, it is still limited by the\namount of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) available in a practical blood draw.\nThis trace amount of detectable ctDNA requires maximal utilization of the input\nfor each assay.  By leveraging the\nPoint-n-Seq technology, a dual targeted sequencing analysis has been developed\nfor both methylation and genomic alterations without sample splitting,\nproviding a great new opportunity to unlock the full potential of cell-free DNA\n(cfDNA)-based liquid biopsy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Question: <\/strong>What\nis the key take away point from your presentation topic which will help in\nbuilding the knowledge base of attendees? \n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1)\nThe Point-n-Seq assay supports flexible panel sizes ranging from 3 Kb-1 Mb+\nwith unique advantages for a small, focused panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2)\nBest-in-class performance, with only 50% processing time and 1\/3 hands-on\nperforming assay time, compared to current methylation protocols.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 3) The Point-n-Seq Targeted Methylation Kit\nprovides the only end-to-end kit solution for cfDNA  methylation analysis on the market with the\nhighest percentage of molecular recovery and uniformity. Our methylation assay\nachieved 0.003% analytical sensitivity using a 1 mL plasma sample at a\nspecificity of ~90% when stage I CRC detection rate is typically 70%, and that\nof stage I NSCLC detection is close to 85%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4)\nThe Point-n-Seq DUO kit is the first solution of its kind available enabling\nboth genomic and epigenomic analysis with a turnaround time of a single day, and that\nincludes no sample splitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5)\nPoint-n-Seq Kits are automation compatible to facilitate the development of\ndistributable, diagnostic cfDNA-based, cancer liquid biopsy assay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Grace Zhao<\/strong> is our esteemed speaker Advanced Genetic Sequencing Virtual Conference<\/a> scheduled to be held on 23-24 September 2021 She will be presenting on the Day 2 of the conference on the topic \u2013 \u2018Dual methylation and mutation analysis from a single input of plasma cfDNA without sample splitting\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Know more about the presentation, visit\nour website \u2013 <\/a>https:\/\/bit.ly\/379gY85<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you wish to learn a great deal\nfrom her about the practice of sequencing in healthcare domain then register online<\/a> or email aradhna.robert@marketsandmarkets.com<\/a> to book your slot at the\nconference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Grace Zhao is a co-founder of Avida Biomed, a biotech start-up specializing in genomic technology innovation for molecular diagnostics. At Avida, Grace co-invented Point-n-Seq, a new platform technology to advance liquid biopsy for early detection of cancer and other diseases. Utilizing the ultra-efficient, hybridization-based pre-amplification enrichment of target molecules from nanogram level cell free DNA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[226,139,126,135,136,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":689,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687\/revisions\/689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/events.marketsandmarkets.com\/blognew\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}