Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

CytoReason is re-defining the Context of the Immune System for Drug Discovery

Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN

CytoReason is re-defining the context of the immune system at a cellular level in order to better understand disease and support more effective drug discovery and development.

Our leading-edge machine-learning driven approach identifies “cause and effect” of the gene/cell/cytokine relationships that lie at the heart of treating disease.

Faster and more accurately than ever before.

CytoReason’s mission is to simulate the cells that can stimulate discovery of:​

• New targets for treating disease

• New insights to mechanism of actions (both of disease and drugs)

• Differences in responses to both disease and treatment

• Which diseases a drug can impact

We have developed a unique machine-learning driven approach to “seeing” the cells that can make the difference in patients seeing a better life.

The insights our approach generates, enable pharmaceutical and biotech companies to make the right decisions, at the right time, in the drug discovery and development programs that bring better therapies.

Based on cutting edge technologies, trained on data that would normally be impossible to access, and steered by leading biological and data science researchers, our approach is underpinned by three core principles:​

SOURCE

https://www.cytoreason.com/

Press Release

https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/216dd2_b715f2c29a8c496eb65315d332a7077e.pdf

Collaboration & Results

Working with leading global pharma and biotech companies and key research institutions, our results help guide R&D decision making.

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Results

Our platform is tried and tested, producing real results with validation

•    Discovered: New cellular players in melanoma microenvironment

•    Discovered: New IL4 mechanism of action in atopic dermatitis

•    Discovered: Novel pre-treatment biomarkers in IBD anti-TNFα therapy

•    Discovered: 355 previously unreported cell/cytokine interactions (view infographic)

Publications

Science is the backbone of our methodologies and applications, and must stand the test of scientific scrutiny.  To date we have 16 research papers published in top quality peer-reviewed scientific journals, including four in 2018 alone – 3 of which were published in journals from the Nature group

Shen-Orr told Forbes in an article published late last month that CytoReason’s tech is able to calculate immune age in one of two ways: “Via cell-subset composition nearest neighbor approach or based on a gene expression signature where the genes are predictive of the cell-subsets composition, and they test for their enrichment in the gene expression pattern of the sample. The immune profiles of individuals are used to predict immune changes based on a machine learning methodology deployed on data on a range of cell-subsets. ”

“The immune age is a biological clock that will help to identify, the decline and progress in immunity that occurs in old age, to determine preventive measures and develop new treatment modalities to minimize chronic disease and death,” he added.

CytoReason’s tech has so far yielded two pending patents, 10 commercial and scientific collaborations, and 16 peer-reviewed publications.

Harel says it was a combination of forces that made CytoReason’s immune-focused methodology work: Big Data, machine learning, and biology. He describes it as “the intersection of computer science and biology.”

SEE ALSO: The Future Of Medicine: Israeli Scientists Unveil New Tech To 3D-Print Personalized Drugs

Professor Magdassi tells NoCamels that with 3D printing of hydrogels, molecules that are soluble in water, scientists can improve the performance of the drug through its delivery. For example, “the hydrogel once ingested can be designed to swell, releasing two, or three, or four drugs at a time [or with a delay] or it can be designed not to swell, depending on what we are trying to achieve.”

“The drug can be tailored to the patient because of the unique shape or structure of the hydrogel and/or its release behavior,” Professor Magdassi explains.

Currently, there is one 3D-printed drug on the market. In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Spritam, a 3D-printed powdered drug in pill form for the treatment of epileptic seizures, designed to dissolve faster than other pills.

SOURCE

http://nocamels.com/2018/11/future-medicine-israel-3d-print-personalized-drugs/

Yiannis Mouratidis

Contributor

Science

Last January, CytoReason announced an agreement with Pfizer, in which the latter will leverage the former’s technology to create cell-based models of the immune system. According to the agreement, CytoReason will receive an undisclosed amount in the low double-digit millions of U.S. dollars from Pfizer in access fees, research support and success-based payments. Prof. Shen-Orr concluded, “The immune age is a biological clock that will help to identify, the decline and progress in immunity that occurs in old age, to determine preventive measures and develop new treatment modalities to minimize chronic disease and death.”