100-plex Grant Program—PhenoCycler-Fusion

Deep Spatial Phenotyping for “Hallmarks of Cancer”

The Akoya 100-plex grant program provided oncology researchers an opportunity to obtain a new perspective in their research with an ultrahigh-plex deep spatial phenotyping assay run on the PhenoCycler®-Fusion platform. The grant recipient will supply up to 3 human tissue samples that will be stained using the 100-plex Hallmarks of Cancer Panel, which is designed to detect 100+ biomarkers. They will receive a robust spatial phenotyping dataset ready for further analysis. These data can be used to help to elucidate a more comprehensive biological picture of the cancer tissue and model under investigation.
Learn more about the PhenoCycler-Fusion system.  Check out the Fusion Multiomics Grant Program.

Grant Program Awardee

Thank you to everyone who submitted an abstract for the Akoya Biosciences 100-plex “Hallmarks of Cancer” grant program! We received hundreds of abstract submissions and our review committee was impressed with the exceptional quality of study proposals. You made the task of selecting only one awardee extremely difficult!
After much deliberation, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of this grant award is Dr. Ryan Park, for his proposal to use the Akoya 100-plex panel to characterize immune landscapes associated with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Congratulations, Dr. Park! Our team is excited to work with you on this project!
Ryan_Park_winner
Ryan Park, MD
Resident Physician
Harvard Radiation Oncology Program
Massachusetts General Hospital
Dr. Ryan Park received his MD from Harvard Medical School and is currently a resident physician in the Hwang Lab at the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Park’s research focus is in immunology and systems biology.  You can review a list of his recent publications in his Harvard Catalyst Profile.

Study Proposal
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has exceptionally poor prognosis and is entirely resistant to current immunotherapies. PDAC has historically been split into 1) classical-like and 2) basal-like consensus subtypes, with the latter associated with worse survival. We recently refined this taxonomy (Hwang et al Nature Genetics in press) by developing a robust single-nucleus RNA-seq (snRNA-seq) approach to study a cohort of resected primary tumors and identified novel PDAC lineage subtypes associated with treatment-resistance and poor prognosis, including a “neural-like progenitor” (NRP) subtype that expresses genes normally found only in the brain. By using digital spatial profiling (NanoString GeoMx) on the resected tumors, we found that CD8 T cells are enriched in regions of tumor with NRP differentiation, which is surprising given that high CD8 T cell infiltration is generally associated with improved prognosis.

We propose to characterize the immune landscapes associated with each of the distinct PDAC malignant subtypes identified by our recent work. By applying the 100-plex Akoya panel to our resected primary PDAC tumors, we would identify the phenotype, cell state, and functionality of lymphoid and myeloid cells. We would use RNAscope on a consecutive section to classify the malignant cell subtypes based on transcription factor expression. In preliminary analysis of our GeoMx and snRNA-seq data, we have observed marked differences in the immune landscapes associated with each PDAC malignant subtype, including differences in expression levels of beta-2-microglobulin and HLA, cytokines, and genes associated with CD8 T cell effector function, differentiation, and exhaustion.

The Akoya platform would give us the opportunity to extend these spatial studies to the single-cell and protein level in order to deeply characterize the intra-tumoral heterogeneity in the tumor immune microenvironment of PDAC, revealing potentially distinct mechanisms of immune evasion that can inform combinatorial therapeutic strategies and thereby advance precision oncology for this lethal disease.

Deep Spatial Phenotyping for “Hallmarks of Cancer”

Application deadline:  June 30, 2022

Akoya Biosciences invites scientists involved in oncology research to apply for a deep spatial phenotyping “Hallmarks of Cancer” grant award.

The PhenoCycler™-Fusion System delivers unprecedented speed and depth enabling researchers to scale up unbiased discovery. Combined with the 100-plex “Hallmarks of Cancer” panel, this assay provides deep insights into the eight functional pathways of cancer.1

The grant recipient will receive:

  • Deep spatial phenotyping data to reveal the presence of 100 cancer biomarkers
  • Spatial insights for up to 3 FFPE tissue samples
  • An assay report on results of the PhenoCycler-Fusion workflow summarized by Akoya’s application team

Apply Now for the 100-plex Grant Program—
PhenoCycler-Fusion System

For the grant recipient, our team of scientists and bioinformaticians will help to generate a robust spatial phenotyping data set for up to 3 human samples that will help to elucidate a more comprehensive biological picture of the cancer tissue and model under investigation using the 100-plex Hallmarks of Cancer Panel, which detects 100 biomarkers for deeper oncology insights.
100 plex diagram
Submissions to this grant program will close on June 30, 2022. To apply, complete the registration form with a 300-word abstract describing how obtaining a deep spatial perspective of your cancer tissue samples at single-cell resolution can support your research project and the insights you hope to glean. All the applications will be reviewed by Akoya’s scientific panel to select a grant winner. Selection criteria include, but are not limited to, scientific impact, novelty, feasibility, and the applicability of fast and scalable spatial phenotyping via PhenoCycler-Fusion to your research.

The grant program is subject to the 100-plex Grant Program—PhenoCycler-Fusion Terms and Conditions which contain eligibility restrictions. No purchase is necessary to enter; void where prohibited.

References
1. Hanahan D (2022) Hallmarks of Cancer: New Dimensions. Cancer Discov 2022, 12:31-46.

APPLY NOW

Deep Spatial Phenotyping for “Hallmarks of Cancer”

Thank you for your interest in the Akoya 100-plex grant program. Online applications are now closed. Our grant review committee is currently evaluating abstract submissions, and we will announce the grant recipient by August 15, 2022.

About this Grant Program

The Akoya 100-plex grant program provided oncology researchers an opportunity to obtain a new perspective in their research with an ultrahigh-plex deep spatial phenotyping assay run on the PhenoCycler-Fusion® platform. The grant recipient will supply up to 3 human tissue samples that will be stained using the 100-plex Hallmarks of Cancer Panel, which is designed to detect 100+ biomarkers. They will receive a robust spatial phenotyping dataset ready for further analysis. These data can be used to help to elucidate a more comprehensive biological picture of the cancer tissue and model under investigation.