Validated tissue bank and pre-collected immuno-oncology datasets speed up investigative research projects through to clinical development

Bio-Techne has added new capabilities and options to its Advanced Cell Diagnostics (ACD)-branded RNAscope® and BaseScope™ in situ hybridization (ISH) Assay Services Portfolio to improve biotech and pharma discovery timelines and costs. Responding to customer needs, the company has expanded its pre-validated tissue bank with new tissues and disease types and created pre-collected immuno-oncology datasets, profiling key targets and immune checkpoint markers.

Biotech and pharma companies can greatly benefit from the reliable and reproducible gene expression analysis delivered by the RNAscope technology in the development of therapeutics, biomarkers, and companion diagnostics. This high-quality RNA ISH assay overcomes many of the challenges of using antibodies and can be used in conjunction with immunohistochemistry (IHC).

In place of developing assays in-house, which can be time-consuming, Bio-Techne’s ACD Assay Services provide rapid in situ gene expression analysis for target validation, drug safety assessment, and biomarker discovery directly from the technology experts. The services cover the entire workflow, from RNA ISH probe validation to data analysis - with results delivered within four weeks on average. In addition, the services offer quantitative image analysis and data review by board-certified pathologists. The RNAscope and BaseScope assays can detect any mRNA and lncRNA molecule, as well as hard-to-detect splice variants in any tissue of any species. This facilitates pharma and biotech preclinical research in all therapeutic areas and the development of companion diagnostics and clinical biomarkers, particularly in oncology.

Bio-Techne’s expanded Assay Services tissue bank resources—a set of high-quality, pre-sourced and pre-validated samples—now include new tissues and disease types. Access to the tissue bank eliminates the need to purchase tissues from a third party, which can otherwise take two to three weeks, and saves tissue processing, handling, and QC validation time. Using pre-validated tissues also guarantees results, avoiding the risk of tissues of unknown quality. The tissue bank includes a collection of validated tissue blocks, human multi-tumor tissue microarray (TMA), normal human TMA, and mouse and rat multi-tissue TMAs with a 100% pass rate and confirmed RNA quality. Pretreatment conditions have also been established for each sample, eliminating the need for optimization.

In addition, Bio-Techne has also begun to produce pre-generated, ready-to-use tissue profiling datasets. The first of these is now available and looks at immuno-oncology checkpoint controls in non-squamous lung cell carcinoma (NSCLC). Access to such datasets greatly facilitates biomarker and therapeutic identification and development, saving significant time, resources, and costs by eliminating the need to create and perform various assays. Bio-Techne will continue to add to these datasets in response to customer requirements.

Tom Olenic, Vice President & General Manager of Advanced Cell Diagnostics, commented,

“RNAscope and BaseScope assays are an invaluable tool for pharma and biotech companies. We wanted to make access to our technology even easier, which is why we created the Assay Services offering some years back. These enable us to run and develop assays for our customers, significantly reducing their discovery times and costs. We have listened to customer needs, expanding our tissue bank and creating readily available datasets to enhance this even further. Our goal is to facilitate drug discovery and development as much as possible by always being responsive to customer feedback and requests, and by developing tools and services that really help to achieve research goals as quickly and as easily as possible. Today the Assay Services team processes greater than 100 customer projects per quarter while delivering greater than 20,000 slides annually.”

Bio-Techne’s sensitive and specific RNAscope and BaseScope assays are used by more than 5,000 laboratories, including all the major pharma and biotech companies, and are featured in more than 1,400 published research papers. The technology enables robust single RNA molecule detection, even in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues, overcoming the limitations of traditional ISH and many of the challenges of IHC.