OC Business Journal

HEALTHCARE:

UCI-built Arvetas Biosciences developing new oncology technology

University of California, Irvine said on Jan. 10 that an on-campus biotech startup, Arvetas Biosciences Inc., has developed new oncology technology that can profile multiple tumors simultaneously.

Arvetas was co-founded by UC Irvine professor Weian Zhao and life sciences exec Alan Hauser in 2020.

Called the Multi Omic Single-scan Assay with Integrated Combinatorial Analysis, or MOSAICA, Arvetas’ “highly innovative” 3D tissue imaging platform can spatially profile several mRNA and protein markers in cells and tissues, including clinical tumor tissues, officials said.

“Spatial biology is a new science frontier and mapping out each cell and its function in the body at both the molecular and tissue level is fundamental to understanding disease and developing precision diagnostics and therapeutics,” Zhao said in a statement.

“Many cancer immunotherapeutics, including immune checkpoint inhibitors, don’t work … because of the spatial organization of all the tumor tissue cell types, which dictates drug efficacy. The MOSAICA can characterize the spatial cellular compositions and interactions in the tumor immune microenvironment in biopsies to inform personalized diagnosis and treatment.”

Arvetas’ research is supported by a $400,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Cancer Institute and several undisclosed grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the university said.

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2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-01-17T08:00:00.0000000Z

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