10 July 2024
Through the agreement, the study aims to better diagnose and treat AYA lymphoma. Its findings could lead to novel classification systems for lymphomas in young adult patients from Asian cohorts, and could further the development of more effective personalized medicines and treatment plans for all patients with lymphoma. Potentially, more than 1000 patients in Singapore may benefit from the use of this genomics technology per year.
Dr. Jason Chan, consultant medical oncologist and director of the Cancer Discovery Hub at NCCS, said, “Lymphoma in adolescent and young adults can be challenging to treat. As a medical oncologist, I look forward to finding new ways to more effectively target the disease to offer our young patients in Asia personalised and targeted therapies to improve survival rates and enhance their quality of life.”
“Illumina understands the importance of cancer research in underrepresented population groups. We are committed to continuing to support the National Cancer Centre Singapore to gain important insights to improve patient care and outcomes in these groups, as the classification systems used in non-Hodgkin lymphoma historically have not been studied in Asian populations,” said Dr Amol Zimur, Head of Medical Affairs, Asia Pacific Illumina.
“By using Illumina technology, the findings of this study could provide more clarity for researchers and investigators, since other currently available companion diagnostic tools do not address Asian-specific variants or the young adult oncology population,” Dr Zimur said.
The NovaSeq Systems enable the study of genetic links between health and disease at an unprecedented scale by making it possible to sequence more samples at greater depth and take on projects that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive. These sequencers have DRAGEN™ (Dynamic Read Analysis for GENomics) on board to provide ultrarapid analysis, further improving quality and reducing secondary data analysis time—all with the goal of enabling insights from sequencing data faster.