Parker Institute, CRI form neoantigen initiative
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Cancer Research Institute (New York, N.Y.) announced a partnership to improve algorithms used to identify cancer neoantigens. Nonprofit organization Sage Bionetworks (Seattle, Wash.) will manage bioinformatics and data analysis for the project.
The Tumor neoantigEn SeLection Alliance (TESLA) will include 30 academic and industry research groups. Each will use its own algorithms to predict a set of neoantigens recognizable by the immune system based on genetic sequences from normal and cancerous tissues. Participants will seek to improve the algorithms based on data from tests of their predictions. The program will focus initially on advanced melanoma, colorectal cancer and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)...