Pressure BioSciences, Inc. (PBI) announced the initial shipments of its recently released, next-generation pressure cycling technology (PCT)-based instrument, the Barocycler 2320EXTREME (2320EXT). Five instruments were recently purchased and delivered: one to an Ivy-league school with a rich history in life sciences research, one to the company's exclusive distributor in China, and the remaining three to the Children's Medical Research Institute (CMRI) near Sydney Australia.

The instruments purchased by CMRI will be used in cancer research studies by the newly established Australian Cancer Research Foundation International Centre for the Proteome of Cancer (ProCan), located in the CMRI facility.

ProCan has announced plans to analyze approximately 70,000 cancer tumor samples over the next seven years with state-of-the-art protein profiling instruments and other tools. Data from their studies are expected to enable discoveries around the causes of cancer, provide guidance on cancer treatment options, and generate standard operating procedures that can be used in cancer testing laboratories worldwide.

In their studies, ProCan will combine PBI's new Barocycler 2320EXT system for sample preparation with SCIEX's SWATH data independent-acquisition mass spectrometry workflow on Triple TOF 6600 Systems.  SCIEX is a global leader in life science analytical technologies.  In January 2016, PBI and SCIEX announced an exclusive, two-year, worldwide co-marketing agreement under which PBI and SCIEX will co-promote PBI's PCT systems with SCIEX's SWATH-based proteomics workflows.

In his 2016 State-of-the-Union message, President Barack Obama introduced the $1B 'Cancer Moonshot' initiative, with a goal to accelerate research in cancer, to break down existing barriers that stymie progress, and to support other changes that will improve the ability to prevent, detect, treat, and cure cancer. Vice-President Biden was asked to lead this effort. On July 16th, the White House named ProCan as one of four preeminent cancer centers in Australia chosen to collaborate with the US National Cancer Institute in the "Cancer Moonshot" initiative.

Professor Phil Robinson, co-head of ProCan, said: "The unique industrial proteomics platform we are developing will unlock the potential of our discoveries and empower us to perform the translational research needed to rapidly identify the cause of each individual cancer, advancing scientific discovery and allowing a more accurate prediction of the best cancer treatments for individual patients."

Prof. Robinson continued: "Patient tumor samples can be pretty tiny and very heterogeneous, but the use of PCT in sample preparation allows researchers to analyze tissue samples as small as those provided by needle biopsies.  So you can use incredibly small amounts of tissue, reliably digest them in a couple of hours, and get large amounts of information."

A key component to the study's success will be the maximization of the breadth of biomolecular analytes revealed and measured, and the quality and reproducibility of the results generated using the tools chosen by ProCan for both the sample preparation and analytical portions of the study. When asked to comment on the importance of sample preparation quality, Dr. Isabelle M. Gorrillot, managing director of Areon Biosciences – a premier life sciences innovation catalyst - who has personally assessed thousands of drug candidates for licensing, said: "PBI's PCT platform may substantially improve research data reliability and efficacy expectations of drug candidates, and in turn significantly mitigate investment risk in their development. By revealing, releasing, and preserving molecular structures that are otherwise likely compromised through current, aggressive mechanical and biochemical treatment of cells in tissue samples, PBI's PCT platform may significantly increase the speed of targeting and accuracy of drug design and subsequent potency and efficacy data."

Dr. Gorrillot continued: "Another aspect of investment risk relates to reproducibility.  PBI's biophysical approach to biological sample preparation provides a tighter level of control that favors enhanced reproducibility. Having assessed thousands of drug candidates, these two aspects of investment risk are central to the go/no go decision."

Pressure BioSciences, Inc. (PBI) develops, markets, and sells proprietary laboratory instrumentation and associated consumables to the estimated $6 billion life sciences sample preparation market.