iXCells Biotechnologies (“iXCells”), a leading provider of human cell-based solutions and custom iPSC services, today announced that it has entered into an international collaboration with Rosebud Biosciences (“Rosebud”), Kantify, and Incite to assess off-target chemotherapy toxicity in patient-specific organoids. Building on recent partnerships with iXCells and Rosebud and funding from Incite, this project will initially focus on predicting toxicity in heart, liver and kidney tissue models to develop personalized multi-organ toxicity profiles for novel chemotherapy.
During this partnership, iXCells will reprogram peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from the blood of patients with liposarcoma, a rare malignant cancer derived from adipose tissue, into human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Rosebud, an innovator in organoid development and complex 3D biology, will use its industrialized organoid platform to differentiate these hiPSCs into heart, liver, and kidney organoids and conduct drug toxicity studies on investigational chemotherapy compounds supplied by Belgian company Kantify. Discover new targets and drugs for undertreated diseases using a new AI discovery engine called Sapian.
Toxicity is quantified through longitudinal imaging and machine learning analysis, cardiac activity measurements, live-death viability assays, tissue-specific immunocytochemistry, and multiparametric readouts of structural and functional organ damage.
Unexpected off-target toxicities in vital organs remain one of the most significant risks for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, with heart, liver, and kidney damage being a leading cause of clinical trial failure. By directly assessing the toxicity of chemotherapy in organoids developed from a patient’s own cells, the collaboration will generate personalized toxicity profiles to guide therapeutic decision-making.
We are excited to collaborate with Rosebud, Kantify, and Incite on this joint initiative to demonstrate how hiPSC technology and organoid systems can transform precision toxicology. Starting with a patient’s own cells provides unprecedented insight into off-target toxicity, one of the biggest challenges in developing safer and more effective cancer treatments. ”
Steve Smith, iXCells Biotechnologies CEO
Kitch Wilson, MD, CEO and co-founder of Rosebud Biosciences, added: “This project addresses one of the most pressing problems in oncology: determining whether a patient’s vital organs will survive life-saving treatments. By combining our scalable organoid technology with iXCells’ cell reprogramming expertise and Kantify’s AI drug discovery platform, we are creating a patient-specific testing system for novel chemotherapy drugs that accurately reflects the type of new approach methodologies encouraged by the FDA.”
