First-in-class liver cancer immunotherapy developer picks Teiko

Goal

• Identify new cell-based immune biomarkers associated with response, combination regimens, and dose
• Validate and complement results from existing genomic sequencing data sets
• Track the impact of their drug on the entire immune system over time

Approach with Teiko

• Verify 10 additional markers on top of Teiko’s 33-marker CyTOF backbone that are associated with the drug’s mechanism of action 
• Profile 24 cryopreserved Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) from 8 patients with liver cancer with custom 43-marker CyTOF assessing 800+ immune cell populations and functional marker subsets per sample
• Runtime for project: ~6 weeks

Results

• We identified novel immune cell biomarkers that correlated with treatment response
• Detected dose- and combo treatment-dependent changes to the immune system
• Confirmed genomic sequencing findings with protein-level analysis
• Developed a custom 43-marker CyTOF panel for PBMC profiling
• Delivered statistically verified results in an interactive web dashboard, enabling deeper insights with PCA, UMAP, and heatmaps.

Who Cares?

• This drug developer successfully tested multiple hypotheses simultaneously from a single experiment—both validating existing datasets and identifying novel biomarkers.
• Moreover, the team could disaggregate the pharmacodynamic impact of their own drug with a combination drug.
• The researchers were able to assess how their drug shaped immune responses alone and in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor, distinguishing their drug’s effects from the checkpoint inhibitor.
• Instead of waiting 3–6 months, they received a verified custom panel and cytometry results in 6 weeks with Teiko, enabling them to move to the next stage of their clinical program faster.