“The time patients have is limited and precious. The faster we analyse sequencing samples, the sooner patients can receive personalised treatment,” said Dr Yaspo. “MGI platforms offer high flexibility and rapid turnaround, enabling us to deliver reliable diagnostics for large patient volumes. Their cost-effectiveness also makes it easier for more people to access affordable cancer services, ultimately contributing to better healthcare.”
GenePlus’ NGS total solution helps match cancer patients with precise therapies
Meanwhile in China, the team at GenePlus, including Dr Xuan Gao and Dr Huan Fang, Assistant Directors of the company’s Genomics Institute, has been focusing on tumour detection and intervention. Their work supports clinicians in identifying the safest and most effective treatments for cancer patients through both clinical and scientific research.
“Having witnessed the pain and suffering of someone close to me who had cancer, I was determined to devote myself to precision cancer medicine,” said Dr Gao. “In the more than six years I’ve worked in this field, high-throughput sequencing technology has rapidly advanced tumour genomics research. It has deepened our understanding of the genetic characteristics and molecular mechanisms of tumours, opening up new therapeutic targets and combination treatment options to ease patients’ suffering.”
Due to the inherent complexity and heterogeneity of cancer, along with its high mutation risk, tumours are constantly evolving, often leading to drug resistance during treatment. While patient stratification has improved, there remains a lack of truly tailored therapy options. At the same time, many scientific advances have yet to reach wider patient populations due to high costs and limitations in clinical trial design and data.
“MGI’s technology plays a critical role in helping us expand precise tumour testing and genome-driven drug strategies,” added Dr Gao, “including for patients who are currently unable to access targeted therapies.”
According to the American Cancer Society, cancer causes around one in every six deaths globally, exceeding the combined toll of AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Today, it is the first or second leading cause of death in most countries worldwide. Advances in genomics have enabled the identification and deeper understanding of causal factors, shedding new light on precision oncology.
4 February marks World Cancer Day, a global initiative dedicated to raising awareness of cancer as a major public health challenge and improving access to quality care, including screening, early detection, treatment, and palliative support.
In this new era of precision oncology, researchers such as Dr Marie-Laure Yaspo from ALACRIS Theranostics (ALACRIS), and Dr Xuan Gao and Dr Huan Fang from GenePlus, are working to close gaps in cancer care. Using evidence-based strategies across the full care continuum, from prevention to treatment, their efforts are supported by MGI’s advanced life science technologies.
ALACRIS advances tumour-agnostic molecular diagnostics to enable tailored treatments
At ALACRIS Theranostics in Germany, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr Marie-Laure Yaspo and her team are committed to delivering the highest standard of care for every cancer patient. This is achieved through Comprehensive Molecular Tumour Analysis (CMTA), a unique molecular diagnostic test designed to identify the most appropriate personalised treatment options for each patient. The approach is based on high-throughput sequencing of the tumour exome (or genome) and transcriptome.
“From earlier cancer genomics research projects, we learned just how complex and unique the molecular landscape of each tumour can be,” said Dr Yaspo, reflecting on her more than 12 years in molecular genetics prior to founding ALACRIS. “Only by collecting comprehensive information on the tumour landscape can we further develop and refine personalised therapies.”
“Every patient is unique, every tumour is different,” she added. To capture this individuality, CMTA integrates two layers of sequencing data, DNA (genome or exome) and RNA (transcriptome), enabling a comprehensive analysis of clinically relevant alterations within each tumour.
Beyond mutations and chromosomal copy number changes, critical features such as gene fusions, oncogene overexpression, and immune microenvironment characteristics provide essential insights for determining optimal therapeutic strategies.
“Starting from a tumour biopsy, the end-to-end Alacris-CMTA® workflow generates high-throughput sequencing data using MGI’s highly accurate and reliable platforms,” said Dr Yaspo. “This data is combined with Alacris’s advanced bioinformatics pipelines to produce a comprehensive, clinically interpreted tumour profiling report. We interpret actionable alterations and match them with drug databases to deliver a concise report that guides oncologists in designing personalised therapies.”
The CMTA® approach aligns closely with the patient journey and is particularly well suited to individuals with refractory or rare cancers who urgently need viable treatment options to improve outcomes.
In 2022, MGI established a Customer Experience Centre at ALACRIS’s Berlin-based facility, equipped with MGI’s DNBSEQ-G400* sequencer, MGISP-960 automation system, and additional technologies. In 2023, a new DNBSEQ-T7* sequencer was installed to further support the facility’s sequencing requirements, including applications in paediatric leukaemia.
The GenePlus NGS total solution, which includes certified kits, library workshops, genetic sequencers, and the GeneBox informatic platform, facilitates faster, simpler and more reliable cancer sequencing. Benefitting from DNBSEQ’s high quality, accuracy and cost-effectiveness, the solution creates a pipeline of tumor precision medication, whole-process case, and pathogen detection. To date, it has been deployed in more than 30 key hospitals in China, where it is applied to the analysis of tumours and pathogens, serving over 550,000 patients in need of accurate diagnosis and treatment.
“Based on MGI’s DNBSEQ technology, our solution has low amplification error rate and high data
utilization rate, which are crucial for ultra-deep sequencing of low-concentration or low-quality oncology samples,” said Dr. Fang. “We leverage this for targeting and immunotherapy guidance in advanced patients and drug sensitivity prediction and cancer minimum residual disease monitoring.”
The development of precision oncology has transformed how we approach the cancer care continuum – from prevention to detection, to diagnosis and treatment – for patients who are not
only looking to survive but also to do so with an optimal quality of life. Supported by MGI, both CMTA® by ALACRIS and the GenePlus NGS total solution are laying the foundation for precise cancer control and ensuring all patients can enjoy effective, reliable, and affordable care for improved outcomes.
