Together with Proteona and Synovo, the NMI will use its platform for patient-derived microtumours for drug screening and the discovery of potential drug candidates. The joint project, which is called "DeepSee", aims to investigate approaches for novel cancer therapies and to test the efficiency of the drug candidates. On the other hand, comprehensive analyses (single cell analyses) will be used to establish methods with which a tailored therapy can be identified for individual cancer patients. This high degree of patient-orientation will be achieved because microtumours originating from the patient can be used to test several therapies and therapy combinations simultaneously. One focus is the development of immunotherapeutics that strengthen the body's own immune system so that it can kill the cancer cells.
A major advantage of single cell analyses is that they require very small sample quantities and significantly improve the validity of the results. At the NMI in particular, the small sample size is a recurring challenge when working with microtumours.
The research project is funded on the German side by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi) within the scope of the Central Innovation Programme for Medium-Sized Enterprises (ZIM) and in Singapore by Enterprise Singapore.
You can find the complete press release here.