10x Genomics Partners With Swiss Hospital to Find Biomarkers Predicting Cancer Treatment Response
The multi-year study aims to find biomarkers that predict treatment response in multiple tumor types, including breast, bladder, and skin cancers.
10x Genomics has launched a multi-year research collaboration with Switzerland’s Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) to study whether single-cell and spatial biology data can predict how cancer patients will respond to treatment.
The study, announced July 29, will use 10x’s Flex Apex single-cell assay and Xenium spatial instrument, with plans to expand to its Atera spatial instrument, to examine tumor samples from advanced cancer patients undergoing evaluation by a clinical molecular tumor board. Researchers aim to identify biomarkers that could predict treatment response and prognosis, and eventually support new diagnostic tools.
The collaboration is expected to enroll hundreds of patients across several solid tumor types, including non-small cell lung cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer and melanoma. Researchers plan to combine single-cell and spatial data with clinical outcomes to study how patients respond to or resist treatments including antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. The study will also examine whether 10x’s technologies could eventually be used clinically alongside existing standard-of-care tests.
Financial and other terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
“This collaboration brings together complementary expertise in spatial biology, pathology, computational AI, and clinical precision oncology to address one of the biggest challenges in cancer care: predicting which patients will benefit from treatment,” said Raphael Gottardo, professor and director of the Biomedical Data Science Center at CHUV.
The collaboration is the latest in a series of moves placing 10x technology into clinical studies to evaluate and demonstrate utility in diagnostics. Last month, 10x signed a similar deal with the Cleveland Clinic. Earlier this year, the company announced three new collaborations with a clinical focus and said it plans to open a CLIA-certified lab in 2027.
CHUV and 10x plan to build a shared dataset combining single-cell and spatial biology with clinical outcomes, which they’ll use to explore how biomarkers might eventually be incorporated into clinical reporting used by molecular tumor boards.
“The promise of precision oncology depends on understanding the biology that helps determine which therapies are most likely to benefit a given patient,” said Serge Saxonov, 10x Genomics’ co-founder and CEO. “We believe single cell and spatial technologies provide a fundamentally richer view of the biology within tumors and their microenvironment.”