Sengenics
Pioneering True Autoantibody Biomarker Discovery and Validation

 
Acquiring high-quality biomarker data is paramount when it comes to drug development and clinical trials. Precise biomarker data streamlines the research and development process, significantly reducing the time and cost of bringing new diagnostic tests and drugs to market. It allows for more focused clinical trials, minimizing the risk of late-stage failures and ensuring resources are used efficiently.

Sengenics is an industry leader in developing cutting-edge, high-throughput tools for accurate autoantibody (AAb) biomarker discovery and validation from just a drop of blood. Over the past four years, Sengenics’ innovative tools have been utilized by the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Their advanced technology has helped expand the potential of AAb biomarkers beyond autoimmune diseases to a broader spectrum of diseases, including cancer, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases.

Dr. Jonathan Blackburn, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Sengenics, highlights some of the reasons why AAbs are excellent clinical biomarkers, “Antibody levels in serum remain stable over time, typically unaffected by common stimuli like diet or exercise. They change primarily in response to disease or treatment, often years before clinical diagnosis.”

Guiding Drug Development and Clinical Trials

Sengenics technology is being leveraged by the pharmaceutical industry to pinpoint targetable antigens and pathways, alongside pathogenic and protective antibodies. These insights can be used to repurpose drugs, develop vaccines and therapies, and predict immune-related adverse events. They can also facilitate early disease detection, disease subtyping, and disease monitoring.

Antibody levels in serum remain stable over time, typically unaffected by common stimuli like diet or exercise. They change primarily in response to disease or treatment, often years before clinical diagnosis.

Dr. Blackburn elaborates on the technology’s application in industry, stating, “Data obtained with the Sengenics platform are helping to select patients for phase I/II clinical trials. Autoantibodies are also being explored as quantitative, surrogate biomarkers for clinical response, with the goal of shortening clinical trials and thereby significantly reducing costs.”

Generating Biologically Relevant Data

Sengenics KREX® technology overcomes challenges with traditional antibody profiling methods. Traditional methods use peptides, protein fragments, or improperly folded proteins, often resulting in nonspecific antibody-antigen binding, false positives, and high background.

Sengenics technology ensures that only correctly folded, full-length, and functional proteins are displayed for AAb binding. Its high-density protein microarrays boast picomolar (pM) sensitivity, a 5-log linear dynamic range, and high reproducibility [i.e., mean intra-array coefficient of variation (CV) < 10%].

“KREX technology preserves the crucial conformational epitopes recognized by 90% of humoral antibodies. By doing so, antibody binding that is both physiologically relevant and immunologically significant can be precisely measured,” Dr. Blackburn emphasizes.

Schematic Illustration: Antibodies Binding to Proteins on Sengenics Microarrays

Offering Tailored Solutions

Both custom and established protein panels are available to meet the specific needs of each project. Sengenics’ current library features over 1800 full-length human proteins, selected for their biological relevance, and is continuously expanding. These proteins represent various organ systems and protein classes, including kinases and signaling proteins, and are associated with a wide range of diseases.

Sengenics arrays facilitate the simultaneous analysis of two antibody isotypes. They also feature the ability to study AAbs to double-stranded DNA released during cell death and citrullinated antigens, a post-translational modification associated with inflammation. In addition to AAb profiling, its functional protein arrays facilitate the identification of binding partners of small molecules and biologics.

Its team of bioinformatics experts works closely with pharmaceutical companies, translating complex data into actionable insights. Offering end-to-end support from study design through to data analysis, Sengenics ensures project success at every step.

Complementing Multiomics Data for Comprehensive Disease Understanding

Classic omic methods and protein profiling approaches like mass spectrometry typically reveal only a fraction of a disease’s complexity. Specifically, they struggle to differentiate between direct effectors and bystanders, making it difficult to determine disease relevance.

By identifying proteins likely causal in disease, Sengenics’ AAb data complement other omic studies and offers a more comprehensive understanding of biological processes underlying health and disease. AAb data directs focused validation studies to ascertain whether a protein or its pathway is a therapeutic target. Sengenics protein arrays further serve to validate biomarkers discovered by other approaches, such as transcriptomics or proteomics.

Partnering with Pharma to Advance Precision Medicine

Sengenics is committed to providing high-quality tools and services for precise biomarker discovery and validation to the pharmaceutical industry. With a global network of distributors and service providers, Sengenics enables pharmaceutical companies to advance precision medicine worldwide.