Horizon's new GENESIS technology allow researchers, for the first time, to routinely and precisely alter any specific gene or genomic location in a human cell. This would allow, for example, the ability to take a non-cancerous cell and mutate it to create a cancerous cell that matches the mutation in a given patient's tumor. Researchers then can test potential treatments on the cell pairs to define which specific mutation status confers the maximal drug activity. These engineered lines and their matched controls can be rapidly deployed in target validation, drug screening, patient profiling, drug resistance and drug re-profiling.

TD2 also has the expertise and capabilities to perform de novo high-throughput synthetic lethal screens that targets the nearly 3-billion-letter human genome, the DNA blueprint that makes us who we are. This will enable users to define the next generation of patient-relevant drug targets. Along with TD2's world-class preclinical, clinical and regulatory affairs expertise, it will ensure that client's targets and drugs will move quickly from the laboratory bench to the patient bedside.

TD2 will provide high-throughput screening capabilities, study execution and business marketing, and may incorporate new service offerings that emerge from its affiliated organizations, TGen and the Van Andel Research Institute.

Horizon through its subsidiary Horizon Discovery Services will support the pre-clinical offerings with bespoke 2D and 3D assay formats that closely mimic the in vivo phenotype being driven by primary and secondary genetic cancer mutations. A key part of identifying the correct phenotype is the ability to replicate the context of the mutation in the actual tumour microenvironment.

Source: The Translational Genomics Research Institute