Akoya Biosciences, Inc. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 400

Description

Project Summary Abstract Single cell technologies have contributed to the understanding of underlying order in heterogenous samplesproviding a platform to identify rare cell types with implications to human diseaseThese platforms are largely based on analyses of single cell suspensions and do not provide a spatial context to the findingsIt is becoming increasingly evident that the tissue architecture is a critical parameter and contributes significantly to the overall biological state of a sampleHigh parameter imaging technologies enable the identification and localization of rare cell types in heterogenous tissue samplesCurrently available high parameter imaging technologies are time consuminglimited in the number of parameters that can be reproducibly imaged and or are cost prohibitive for broad use in the scientific communityAkoya Biosciences Inchas exclusively licensed a new high parameter imaging technology termed CODEXCO Detection by indEXingthat is robustinexpensive and can quickly acquire fluorescence data across tens of parametersThe CODEX platform consists of a set of specialized biologic reagentsincluding tagged antibody and oligo productsas well as a fluidics robot that can be attached to any inverted microscopeThe broad applicability of this technology will enable any labranging from small academic labs to large pharmaceutical research entitiesto acquire high parameter imaging dataThese analyses will enable a deep understanding of disease mechanismstherapeutic targets and overall tissue architectureThe goal of Akoya Biosciences Incis to commercialize this technology through the production of the fluidics robot as well as reagent kits for antibody staining and signal renderingThe current version of the technology was developed for the analysis of fresh frozenFFtissue sampleshowevermost tissue samples are stored as formalin fixed paraffin embeddedFFPEThe conditions for analyzing FF tissues using the CODEX platform do not result in effective antibody staining for FFPE tissuesThe goal of the research outlined in this grant proposal is to develop conditions and methodologies that enable the analysis of FFPE tissues with the CODEX platformThis will increase the overall applicability of the technology and drastically increase the customer base for Akoya Biosciences IncWe plan to use the information learned in this Phase SBIR I grant proposal to develop antibody panels validated for FFPE tissues that will be commercializedThis greater development effort will be the focus of a follow on Phase II SBIR grant application Project narrative Deciphering disease mechanisms and identifying therapeutic targets requires a deep understanding of tissue architecture at the single cell levelThe CODEX platform is a high parameter imaging technology that can map tissue architecture with high resolution and can therefore enable important findings related to the biological state of a tissue sample in greater detail than existing platformsThe goal of the research outlined in this grant proposal is to extend the capabilities of this technology to all tissue typesincluding formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissues