From 30,000 to 15 million unique TCRs
Adaptive’s scientists have invented a patent-pending technology that utilizes advances in high-throughput sequencing and a state-of-the-art computer infrastructure to provide researchers the first in-depth analysis of the T-cell receptor repertoire, a specific and important part of the immune system.
With this technology, scientists are able to identify the exact makeup of approximately 10-15 million unique TCRs in one individual, compared to previous techniques that could catalog only about 30,000.
This has extraordinary consequences for scientific researchers who are able to access the technology through Adaptive’s first commercial product immunoSEQ.
Applications
Adaptive is in the process of developing assays for both clinical diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring for a variety of disorders and conditions.
Two possible mechanisms by which our technology leads to a clinically relevant diagnostic test include an analysis based upon the frequency distributions of TCR clonotypes, or upon the presence/absence of specific TCR clonotypes (or classes of clonotype).
Therapeutic Monitoring
Another application of our technology is the use of TCR profiling to monitor disease state or other conditions over the course of therapy. Adaptive is currently collaborating with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to test the feasibility of this concept in patients who have undergone immune system ablation and reconstitution with cord blood stem cells.
Drug Discovery
Adaptive is concentrating its efforts on specific, prevalent auto-immune diseases. Autoimmune diseases result from a hyperactive immune system attacking normal tissues (TCRs mistakenly recognizing human proteins) as if they were foreign organisms. We believe a drug therapy targeting the specific TCR combinations associated with disease could pre-emptively block the relevant TCRs from mistakenly reacting to their own body tissues, thus preventing or ameliorating the autoimmune disease. In collaboration with Dr. Gerald Nepom, Director of the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Adaptive is currently screening blood samples from patients with either Type 1 Diabetes or Multiple Sclerosis (“MS”) for public TCR sequences.
