LAUSR

Collaborating on bones Taconic Biosciences has announced a collaborative agreement with the skeletal-focused preclinical CRO Pharmatest Services to improve bone metastasis research with a novel Human Immune System model. Pharmatest developed the model from Taconic’s existing huNOG animals, a humanized mouse line that contains human cancer and immune cells in the bone. Pharmatest COO Jenni Bernoulli remarked, “By using humanized mice provided by Taconic, we have been able to establish more predictive animal models to support immuno-oncology therapy development.” received a $2 million small business grant from the NIH National Cancer Institute to further develop a novel protein-based MRI contrast agent called ProCA32. With collaborators at Georgia State and Emory University, the company will work to optimize and validate ProCA32 for early detection of liver cancer and liver metastases. The funding will also support animal toxicology testing that is needed before the contrast agent can move into human clinical trials. Prior preclinical research from Yang and her collaborators suggests ProCA32 can detect liver tumors as small as 0.24 mm in rodents, an improvement from the 1 cm resolution detectable by existing contrast agents.