On April 8, 2021 Personalis, Inc. (Nasdaq: PSNL), a leader in advanced genomics for cancer, reported that the company will present new data in scientific posters to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (Free AACR Whitepaper) Annual Meeting 2021, which will be held online, April 10-15, 2021 and May 17-21, 2021 (Press release, Personalis, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577754]).

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These abstracts showcase data from ImmunoID NeXT, the first platform to enable comprehensive analysis of both a tumor and its immune microenvironment from a single sample. The ImmunoID NeXT Platform can be used to investigate the key tumor- and immune-related areas of cancer biology, consolidating multiple oncology biomarker assays into one and maximizing the biological information that can be generated from a precious tumor specimen.

Following are details and links to the scientific posters that will be presented at the online meeting.

Poster Number, Session Category and Session Title

Title & Presenter

Date

Location

399

Clinical Research (Excluding Trials)

Biomarkers Predictive of Therapeutic Benefit

Pan-cancer survey of HLA loss of heterozygosity using a robustly validated NGS-based machine learning algorithm

Presenter: Rachel Marty Pyke, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

555

Clinical Research (Excluding Trials)

Liquid Biopsies: Circulating DNA

Longitudinal exome-scale liquid biopsy monitoring of evolving therapeutic resistance mechanisms in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients receiving anti-PD-1 therapy

Presenter: Charles Abbott, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

1898

Immunology
Tumor

Antigenicity/Processing and Presentation

Accurate modeling of antigen processing and MHC peptide presentation using large-scale immunopeptidomes and a novel machine learning framework

Presenter: Rachel Marty Pyke, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

2227

Molecular and Cellular Biology / Genetics

Genomic Profiling of Tumors

Pan-cancer shedding patterns of tumor circulating cell free DNA

Presenter: Fábio Navarro, PhD

April 10, 2021

Online

2241

Molecular and Cellular Biology / Genetics

Genomic Profiling of Tumors

Profiling tumor-infiltrating immune cells using an augmented transcriptome

Presenter: Eric Levy, PhD

April 10

On April 8, 2021 Anavex Life Sciences Corp. ("Anavex" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: AVXL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing differentiated therapeutics for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Rett syndrome and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders, reported that Christopher U. Missling, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anavex, will present at the 20th Annual Needham Virtual Healthcare Conference on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 8:45 a.m. EDT (Press release, Anavex Life Sciences, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577722]).

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A live audio webcast will be available on View Source or in the Investors section of the Company’s website at www.anavex.com. An audio archive of the session will also be available on the website.

On April 8, 2021 Varian (NYSE: VAR) reported it is collaborating with Google Cloud to build an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) based diagnostic platform to aid in the fight against cancer (Press release, Varian Medical Systems, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577738]). Varian and Google Cloud AI embarked on a deployment journey, using Neural Architecture Search (NAS) technology via Google Cloud AI Platform, to create AI models for organ segmentation—a crucial and labor-intensive step in radiation oncology that can be a bottleneck in the cancer treatment clinical workflow.

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Organ segmentation is the process of identifying the organs and tissues in diagnostic images that must be targeted or protected during a course of radiation therapy. These segmented images are then used to create radiotherapy treatment plans that specify where and how much dose will be deposited during treatment. This is a labor-intensive process that can take a clinician hours per patient. In some regions of the world, segmentation is a limiting factor in cancer patients’ access to advanced treatments like intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) that require accurate organ segmentation.

Varian is using Google Cloud AI Platform’s NAS technology to create an AI segmentation engine that is being "trained," using Varian’s proprietary treatment planning image data, to create customized auto-segmentation models for organs in the body. Varian intends to incorporate these models into its treatment planning software tools for use in cancer centers around the world.

"At Varian, we are working towards a world without fear of cancer, where high-quality cancer care—personalized and optimized for each patient—is available everywhere. To that end, we have committed ourselves to Intelligent Cancer Care, which seeks to automate routine or repetitive tasks in the radiation oncology workflow through the use of smart algorithms, machine learning, and AI," said Corey Zankowski, Senior Vice President, Technology and Innovation Office, Varian. "This collaboration with Google Cloud will turbocharge our efforts in this area."

"At Google Cloud, we believe AI technology has the power to impact a wide variety of industries, which is especially true in the field of medicine," said Craig Wiley, Director of Product Management, Google Cloud. "We are excited to see how Varian accelerates AI innovation and segmentation quality to improve cancer care with radiation therapy using our state-of-the-art NAS technology. As Varian’s AI platform of choice, our teams are working closely to deliver best-in-class AI for cancer treatment to patients around the world."

On April 8, 2021 Portage Biotech reported that began the first human study of its invariant natural killer T-cell agonist, PORT-3, in patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors that express NY-ESO-1 (Press release, Portage Biotech, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234579565]).

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The drug is a coformulation of the invariant natural killer T-cell agonist and a tumor-specific antigen targeting NY-ESO-1. The Phase I dose escalation study, called PRECIOUS-01, will evaluate PORT-3 at three dose levels in about 15 participants. Study participants are being screened for NY-ESO-1 expression using immunohistochemistry.

Researchers will use an IHC assay to measure participants’ immune responses and determine the composition of immune cell subsets before and after treatment with PORT-3 to establish the recommended Phase II dose. They will also measure the immunological responses in blood to determine the functional response of invariant natural killer T cells and T cells.

Portage is currently developing two invariant natural killer T-cell agonists, PORT-2 and PORT-3. "Preclinical studies of both compounds have shown that treatment can lead to a broad reprogramming of the immune system," Portage CEO Ian Walters said in a statement. "We are excited to begin first-in-human trials of PORT-3 to test the proof-of-concept of this approach. If the trial is successful with NY-ESO-1, it will open the door to a multitude of opportunities to design more formulations with other tumor-specific antigens."

The PRECIOUS-01 trial is funded by the EU Horizon 2020 program and recruitment has begun at Radboud University in the Netherlands.

On April 8, 2021 Aptose Biosciences Inc. (Nasdaq: APTO; TSX: APS), a clinical-stage company developing highly differentiated therapeutics that target the underlying mechanisms of cancer, reported that William G. Rice, Ph.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will participate in Canaccord Genuity’s 2021 Horizons in Oncology Virtual Conference (Press release, Aptose Biosciences, APR 8, 2021, View Source [SID1234577723]):

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Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

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Canaccord Genuity’s 2021 Horizons in Oncology Virtual Conference

Panel: Opportunities in BPDCN and AML
Date: Thursday, April 15, 2021
Time: 3:00 – 3:55 PM EDT
Format: Panel Moderated by John Newman, Ph.D., Managing Director, Biotechnology Analyst

Conference Information: Link
The Aptose management team also will be hosting 1×1 meetings during the event.