Discover the Latest NGS-Based Assays Guiding Precision Oncology: IDT joins forces with Foundation Medicine in AMP workshop

At this year’s Association of Molecular Pathology (AMP) meeting, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) and Foundation Medicine will explore how nucleic acid innovations are advancing NGS-based diagnostics to improve cancer care. Their joint Corporate Workshop (November 12, 11 am, Maryland Ballroom D) will demonstrate the application of IDT’s target enrichment products and expertise in Foundation Medicine’s cutting-edge, high performance NGS-based assays for accurate and comprehensive cancer genomic profiling. These assays identify targeted treatment options for patients with solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

Applications that enable clinical research form a major part of IDT’s focus. IDT’s xGen® Lockdown® Probes and Panels enhance target enrichment and allow flexibility in NGS-based assay optimization, while achieving excellent uniformity with virtually no GC bias. The range of custom capture probe panels for targeted NGS can be tailored to cover a wide range of diseases. Dr John Havens, Vice President, Business Development at IDT, will demonstrate IDT’s role in advancing human health during his talk, entitled, “IDT Nucleic Acid Products for Clinical Research and Diagnostics”. Attendees will discover new opportunities for their research and learn how these innovations have been applied in cancer research.

Foundation Medicine is leading a transformation in cancer care, where each patient’s treatment is informed by a deep understanding of the molecular changes that contribute to their disease. The company has applied NGS to develop and validate robust, sensitive comprehensive genomic profiles that detect all classes of genomic alterations in routine clinical FFPE samples, peripheral whole blood, and bone marrow aspirate. In his talk, entitled, “Building an NGS-Based Platform for Clinical Cancer Care”, Dr Geoff Otto, Director of Molecular Biology and Sequencing at Foundation Medicine, will discuss Foundation Medicine’s comprehensive genomic profiles. These CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited, and NYSDOH-approved tests rely on solution hybrid capture of the coding regions and select intronic regions of hundreds of cancer-related genes. Dr Otto will demonstrate how comprehensive genomic profiling guides selection of targeted therapies and present the successful application of Foundation Medicine’s tests to more than 15,000 patient samples.

The AMP 2014 Annual Meeting (November 12–15, National Harbor, MD, USA) comprises a broad program that encourages inspiring dialogue and discussion among attendees. The theme for this meeting is "Realizing the Dream of Precision Medicine". The collaboration between IDT and Foundation Medicine embraces this goal, delivering NGS technologies that have real-world benefits in the clinic.