SEATTLE and REDMOND, Wash., March
20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp.
(Nasdaq: ADPT) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Friday
announced they will leverage their existing partnership mapping
population-wide adaptive immune responses to diseases at scale to
study COVID-19. Finding the relevant immune response signature may
advance solutions to diagnose, treat and prevent the disease,
augmenting existing research efforts that primarily focus on the
biology of the virus. These data will be made freely available to
any researcher, public health official or organization around the
world via an open data access portal.
"We can improve our collective understanding of COVID-19 by
decoding the immune system's response to the virus and the disease
patterns that can be inferred from studying these data at the
population level," said Chad Robins,
CEO and co-founder of Adaptive Biotechnologies. "Immune response
data may enable detection of the virus in infected people not
showing symptoms and improve triaging of newly diagnosed patients,
potentially solving two of the challenges we are facing in the
current diagnostic paradigm."
To generate immune response data, Adaptive will open enrollment
in April to collect de-identified blood samples, using a
LabCorp-enabled mobile phlebotomy service, from individuals
diagnosed with or recovered from COVID-19 in a virtual clinical
trial managed by Covance. Immune cell receptors from these blood
samples will be sequenced using Illumina platform technology
and mapped to SARS-CoV-2-specific antigens that will have been
confirmed by Adaptive's proprietary immune medicine
platform to induce an immune response. The immune response
signature found from the initial discovery work and the initial set
of samples will be uploaded to the open data access portal.
Leveraging Microsoft's hyperscale machine learning capabilities and
the Azure cloud platform, the accuracy of the immune response
signature will be continuously improved and updated online in real
time as more trial samples are sequenced from the study.
To expedite the development and relevance of the immune response
signature across the global population, the companies are seeking
additional participation from institutions and research groups
around the world to contribute blood samples to this open data
initiative. Providence, a large
health system with 51 hospitals, including the one near
Seattle that treated the first
U.S. COVID-19 patient, is an initial clinical collaborator.
"The solution to COVID-19 is not likely going to come from one
person, one company or one country. This is a global issue, and it
will be a global effort to solve it," said Peter Lee, corporate vice president, AI and
Research, Microsoft. "Making critical information about the immune
response accessible to the broader research community will help
advance ongoing and new efforts to solve this global public health
crisis, and we can accomplish this goal through our proven
TCR-Antigen mapping partnership with Adaptive."
Timing and enrollment details about the upcoming study and the
open data access portal will be coming soon. Institutions or
collaborators interested in contributing blood samples can direct
inquiries to COVID19ImmuneResponse@adaptivebiotech.com.
For additional resources go to
https://www.adaptivebiotech.com/about-us/media-resources/.
About the Adaptive and Microsoft partnership
Adaptive
and Microsoft partnered in 2018 to create a TCR-Antigen Map, an
approach to translating the genetics of the adaptive immune
system to understand at scale how it works. Together we are using
immunosequencing and machine learning to map T-cell receptor (TCR)
sequences to diseases and disease-associated antigens. Using these
data, we aim to develop a blood test for the early and accurate
detection of many diseases, translating the natural diagnostic
capability of the immune system into the clinic. In 2019, we
confirmed clinical signals in two diseases, and established our
first proof of concept in Lyme Disease. We expect to submit our
first clinical application to the FDA in 2020.
About Adaptive Biotechnologies
Adaptive
Biotechnologies is a commercial-stage biotechnology company focused
on harnessing the inherent biology of the adaptive immune
system to transform the diagnosis and treatment of disease. We
believe the adaptive immune system is nature's most finely tuned
diagnostic and therapeutic for most diseases, but the inability to
decode it has prevented the medical community from fully leveraging
its capabilities. Our proprietary immune medicine platform reveals
and translates the massive genetics of the adaptive immune system
with scale, precision and speed to develop products in life
sciences research, clinical diagnostics, and drug discovery. We
have two commercial products, and a robust clinical pipeline to
diagnose, monitor and enable the treatment of diseases such as
cancer, autoimmune conditions and infectious diseases. Our goal is
to develop and commercialize immune-driven clinical products
tailored to each individual patient. For more information, please
visit adaptivebiotech.com.
About Illumina
Illumina is improving human health by
unlocking the power of the genome. Our focus on innovation has
established us as the global leader in DNA sequencing and
array-based technologies, serving customers in the research,
clinical, and applied markets. Our products are used for
applications in the life sciences, oncology, reproductive health,
agriculture, and other emerging segments. To learn more, visit
www.illumina.com and follow @illumina.
About LabCorp
LabCorp (NYSE: LH), an S&P 500
company, is a leading global life sciences company that is deeply
integrated in guiding patient care, providing comprehensive
clinical laboratory and end-to-end drug development services. With
a mission to improve health and improve lives, LabCorp delivers
world-class diagnostics solutions, brings innovative medicines to
patients faster, and uses technology to improve the delivery of
care. LabCorp reported revenue of more than $11.5 billion in 2019. To learn more about
LabCorp, visit www.LabCorp.com, and to learn more about Covance
Drug Development, visit www.Covance.com.
About Providence
Providence is a national, not-for-profit
Catholic health system comprising a diverse family of organizations
and driven by a belief that health is a human right. With 51
hospitals, 1,085 physician clinics, senior services, supportive
housing and many other health and educational services, the health
system and its partners employ more than 119,000 caregivers serving
communities across seven states – Alaska, California, Montana, New
Mexico, Oregon,
Texas, and Washington, with system offices in
Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif.
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft)
enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud
and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and
every organization on the planet to achieve more.
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