Immuno-Oncology

Xeno Diagnostics offers a suite of assays tailored to address the numerous mechanisms and modes of cancer development embodied by today’s novel therapies. While there are many different areas of research in immuno-oncology based on the type of cancer and the mechanism of the therapy, Xeno Diagnostics broadly categorizes these into 5 groups or phases: Tumor Microenvironment effects, tumor and/or antigen Recognition and Activation of immune cells, recruitment of immune cells and Migration towards the tumor, Killing of the tumor by cytotoxic cells, and evaluating the therapy for Safety and adverse effects.

• Tumor microenvironment: The TME has a major impact on the anti-tumor activity of immune cells, such as the suppression of immune function that prevents immune cells from mounting an effective anti-tumor response. Xeno Diagnostic offers assays to characterize and test those therapeutic modalities that are designed to prevent TME suppression or to re-activate immune cells in the TME.
• Recognition and Activation: Cancerous cells have several mechanisms to hide from immune cells, including the upregulation of certain cell surface markers (immune checkpoint receptors) that suppress immune function. Xeno Diagnostics offers a wide range of assays to test immune cell activation and enhancement in response to antigenic and allogeneic stimulation.
• Migration: Chemokine attractants released by cancer cells can initiate migration of immune cells to tumor loci; however, this effect is offset as the tumor microenvironment suppresses immune cell function in order to “hide” from effector immune cells. Xeno Diagnostics offers cell migration assays to test recruitment of pro-inflammatory immune cells.
• Tumor Killing: Elimination and reduction of the tumor is the ultimate goal of every cancer therapy and as such it is critical to characterize these effects for a new therapy. There are a wide variety of cells involved and as well as different pathways of elimination. Xeno Diagnostics offers a very broad range of standard and custom assays to address the myriad of mechanisms to eliminate cancer cells. Additionally, our scientists are very open to working with novel systems or models that are proposed or provided to us by a Sponsor.
• Safety: Although the body’s immune system functions effectively to restore homeostasis after a biological or physical insult, the protective mechanisms can become detrimental when over activated. This is often seen when new pharmaceuticals or medical devices, intended to promote healing, are introduced into the body but cause unintended over activation of the immune system. Xeno Diagnostics offers a number of in vitro and ex vivo assays to evaluate adverse effects.