On March 31, 2020 IONpath, Inc. reported that it has jointly produced with Bristol Myers Squibb an article entitled Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging (MIBI) for Characterization of the Tumor Microenvironment Across Tumor Types (Multiplexed ionic ray images to characterize the tumor microenvironment in different types of tumors) for the journal Laboratory Investigation of the scientific journal Nature (Press release, IONpath, MAR 31, 2020, View Source [SID1234556054]).
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The ability to understand all cells present within a tumor by differentiating different cell types at the same time in a single tissue section has been limited by the technology available. In the article, the authors demonstrate how Multiplexed Ion Beam Imaging (MIBI ) technology (multiplexed ion beam images) is able to detail the characteristics of a wide variety of tumor types by providing identification of the cell phenotype along with the analysis of their spatial relationships. For this collaboration, Bristol Myers Squibb provided samples of 50 tumor biopsies to IONpath, which were simultaneously marked with a panel of 15 antibodies, each labeled with a specific metal isotope. The highly detailed mapping of the tumor microenvironment generated an immunological profile(fig. 1) and a spatial organization (fig. 2) through a multi-step process that segmented the sample to the individual cell.
Such information was collected as an exercise to observe the characteristics of the samples in question. However, the implications of this new level of tumor mapping at the cellular level can be far-reaching. Scientists and drug developers can now measure the proximity between immune cells and cancer cells. Within the same sample, they can also measure protein expression levels of potential drug targets and other variables associated with the response to certain therapies, such as those that target immunological checkpoints.
"IONpath’s mission is to enable medical discovery, specifically in the field of immuno-oncology, by characterizing the tumor microenvironment down to the cellular level," said Dr. Jessica Finn , director of pathology and one of the authors of the article. She added that "examining these detailed and interrelated structures is a difficult but important job in the fight to cure certain types of cancer."
Exemplifying how this mission for IONpath can impact on real-world decisions, the study demonstrated the possibilities for calculating distances between different cell subsets, including tumor and immune cells, as well as subsets of immune cells that express PD-1 and PD -L1. Further studies in this area can be designed to support better results in the field of immuno-oncology.