Washington University, ArcherDX partner for MRD in pediatric AML sequencing study

BOULDER, Colo., April 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington University in St. Louis and ArcherDX will partner on a study to characterize and assess minimum residual disease (MRD) across 870 pediatric patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) using next-generation sequencing (NGS). The study will use samples from the Children's Oncology Group (COG) AAML1531 study and employ ArcherDX's high-sensitivity, error-correctable sequencing technology to characterize clonal architecture at both diagnosis and relapse.

"Evidence suggests that some patients harbor rare sub-clones of cancer cells at the time of diagnosis that can go undetected by conventional techniques and remain present at relapse," said principal investigator of the study Todd Druley, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and of Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine. "We'll be looking at whether the technology can accurately detect these sub-clone variants and potentially help establish a new risk stratification for these children." 

Erin Crowgey, PhD, Associate Director of Bioinformatics at The Nemours Children's Health System, who is working closely with Dr. Druley, stated, "We've been working closely with the Archer team to push the limits of NGS down to 1 in 10,000 cells, which is the resolution needed for MRD-type studies. Some of the initial results of the study have been very promising."

Regarding ArcherDX's role in this study, Ryan Walters, PhD, Vice President of Assay Development and Scientific Operations at ArcherDX, stated, "Recent advancements to our chemistry and software have enabled us to deliver this large custom Archer^® VariantPlex^® panel with remarkably low limits of detection. We are eager to see the study results and the impact it will have on pediatric AML."

The study is expected to be completed later this year.

About ArcherDX
ArcherDX addresses the bottlenecks associated with using NGS in translational research by offering a robust platform for targeted sequencing applications. By combining proprietary Anchored Multiplexed PCR (AMPtm) chemistry in an easy-to-use, lyophilized format and a powerful bioinformatics platform, ArcherDX technology dramatically enhances mutation identification and discovery. Learn more at archerdx.com.

ArcherDX is headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

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SOURCE ArcherDX