King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Investigators will present study highlighting a phosphoproteomic diagnostic for patient stratification of first line systemic hepatocellular carcinoma therapy LONDON, May 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Kinomica Ltd., a developer of KScan® precision oncology diagnostics, today announced the company and collaborators from King's College London and King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will be presenting at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, which will be held May 31 – June 4, in Chicago, IL. Debashis Sarker MBChB FRCP PhD, Reader in Experimental Oncology, King's College London and Consultant Medical Oncologist at King's College Hospital, part of King's Health Partners, will present the results of the collaboration in a poster titled ' Identification of a predictive phosphoproteomic signature of response to atezolizumab and bevacizumab (AB) in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC)'. Details of the poster presentation are as follow: Poster Session: Developmental Therapeutics—Immunotherapy Session Date and Time: Saturday June 1, 2024, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT Poster Board Number: 110 Abstract Presentation Number: 2631 "We look forward to sharing our important work that for the first time describes a promising biomarker signature with the potential to predict response to the immunotherapy atezolizumab and bevacizumab in patients with aHCC," said Dr Sarker. "An important characteristic of the study is that the biomarkers have been derived from real-world Tru-Cut biopsies taken at diagnosis providing confidence in their potential clinical utility." "This collaborative effort, drawing on multidisciplinary expertise and rich clinical proteomic data demonstrates the predictive power of the KScan® diagnostic platform," said Tim Fell PhD, Executive Chair of Kinomica. "We look forward to extending this collaborative research to determine predictive biomarkers to other approved aHCC therapies and the creation of a multi-drug diagnostic to aid therapy selection." Kinomica will be attending ASCO. Please contact us to request a meeting. About Kinomica Kinomica is a developer of precision oncology diagnostics. The company has developed KScan®, a phosphoproteomic diagnostic platform to help clinicians better realize the full potential of precision medicine by predicting which of the drugs currently approved to treat a disease a particular patient will respond best to, thereby aiding clinical decision making. Learn more at and follow us on LinkedIn. About King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is one of the UK's largest and busiest teaching hospitals. The Trust is recognised internationally for its work in liver disease and transplantation, neurosciences, cardiac, haemato-oncology, fetal medicine, stroke and major trauma. Our hospitals include King's College Hospital (Denmark Hill), the Princess Royal University Hospital (PRUH), and Orpington Hospital – we also provide some services at Beckenham Beacon and Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup. We provide care to 1.5 million patients in Southwark, Lambeth, Bromley, Bexley, Lewisham and elsewhere in south-east London and parts of Kent. In 2021, we launched our strategy, Strong Roots, Global Reach, with our new vision to be BOLD. About King's Health Partners King's Health Partners brings research, education and clinical practice together across three NHS Foundation Trusts, Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital, and South London and Maudsley, with a world-leading university, King's College London. We are an Academic Health Science Centre, improving health and care services by translating early scientific research, discoveries and ideas to benefit patients and communities we serve in south London and beyond. We connect people and programmes across our partnership and train and develop future generations of healthcare professionals. Collectively, we serve nearly 40,000 students from 190 countries. Our 45,000 staff conduct around 4.8 million patient visits and we have a turnover of nearly £5 billion. Find out more at kingshealthpartners.org Logo - SOURCE Kinomica Ltd.

Gill brings decades of leadership experience building biotech companies, transformative platforms and developing products The company announces first Development Candidate Nomination, SENS-01, developed as a rapid-acting, well-tolerated therapeutic for anxiety, with immediate plans to start IND enabling studies and enter the clinic by 2025 BOSTON, Jan. 30, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Sensorium Therapeutics (Sensorium), a biotechnology company leveraging machine learning, medicinal chemistry and neuroscience to develop nature-inspired neuroactive medicines for neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases, today announced it appointed Simba Gill, Ph.D., as an independent director to its Board. "Simba's strategic leadership insights will be critical as we advance our lead program, SENS-01, toward the clinic and progress our pipeline to address areas of unmet need across the CNS space," said Alexandra Glucksmann, Ph.D., CEO of Sensorium. "Patients are in need of treatments that are more effective and with fewer side effects. I am confident Simba's experience in company building and optimizing patient impact will strengthen our efforts." Simba brings to the company decades of biotech and pharma experience building companies and transformative platforms as well as developing products, having served in key roles at Maxygen, Systemix, Boehringer Mannheim and Celltech. He earned his MBA at INSEAD and received his Ph.D. from King's College, London. "Sensorium's team uniquely integrates multiple disciplines to create a platform that opens up the possibility of transforming the treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases," said Dr. Gill. "I greatly look forward to supporting Sensorium as the company advances its platform and potential products into clinical development and beyond." The company also announces Development Candidate Nomination of SENS-01, is a rapid-acting and well-tolerated new chemical entity which is being developed for patients with anxiety, with a novel mechanism of action from standard of care. Sensorium initiated IND-enabling studies in 2024 and plans to progress to the clinic in 2025. About Sensorium Therapeutics Sensorium Therapeutics is a biotechnology company leveraging chemistry, neuroscience, and machine learning to develop novel neuroactive medicines for neuropsychiatric and neurological diseases. Sensorium's Biodynamic Discovery Platform™ identifies and enhances natural molecules with a long history of human efficacy to develop new chemical entities that are more effective and with fewer side effects. Founded by world-class researchers, clinicians, and drug developers, the company completed a $30M Series A financing in late 2022 led by Santé Ventures, with participation from Route 66 Ventures, CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, and others. Visit sensorium.bio to learn more. SOURCE Sensorium Therapeutics

Scientists have grown 'mini-placentas' in the lab and used them to shed light on how the placenta develops and interacts with the inner lining of the womb -- findings that could help scientists better understand and, in future, potentially treat pre-eclampsia. The study shows that it is possible to experiment on a developing human placenta, rather than merely observe specimens, in order to study major disorders of pregnancy. Scientists have grown 'mini-placentas' in the lab and used them to shed light on how the placenta develops and interacts with the inner lining of the womb -- findings that could help scientists better understand and, in future, potentially treat pre-eclampsia. The study, published today in Cell Stem Cell, shows that it is possible to experiment on a developing human placenta, rather than merely observe specimens, in order to study major disorders of pregnancy. Successful pregnancy depends on the development of the placenta in the first few weeks of gestation. During this period, the placenta implants itself into the endometrium -- the mucosal lining of the mother's uterus. Interactions between the cells of the endometrium and the cells of the placenta are critical to whether a pregnancy is successful. In particular, these interactions are essential to increase the maternal blood supply to the placenta, necessary for fetal growth and development. When these interactions do not work properly, they can lead to complications, such as pre-eclampsia, a condition that causes high blood pressure during pregnancy. Pre-eclampsia occurs in around six in 100 first pregnancies and can put at risk the health of both the mother and the baby. Professor Ashley Moffett from the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge said: "Most of the major disorders of pregnancy -- pre-eclampsia, still birth, growth restriction, for example -- depend on failings in the way the placenta develops in the first few weeks. This is a process that is incredibly difficult to study -- the period after implantation, when the placenta embeds itself into the endometrium, is often described as a 'black box of human development'. "Over the past few years, many scientists -- including several at Cambridge -- have developed embryo-like models to help us understand early pre-implantation development. But further development is impeded because we understand so little about the interactions between the placenta and the uterus." Professor Moffett and colleagues at the Friedrich Miescher Institute, Switzerland, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Cambridge, have used 'mini-placentas' -- a cellular model of the early stages of the placenta -- to provide a window into early pregnancy and help improve our understanding of reproductive disorders. Known as 'trophoblast organoids', these are grown from placenta cells and model the early placenta so closely that they have previously been shown to record a positive response on an over-the-counter pregnancy test. In previous work, Professor Moffett and colleagues identified genes that increase the risk of or protect against conditions such as pre-eclampsia. These highlighted the important role of immune cells uniquely found in the uterus, known as 'uterine natural killer cells', which cluster in the lining of the womb at the site where the placenta implants. These cells mediate the interactions between the endometrium and the cells of the placenta. In their new study, her team applied proteins secreted by the uterine natural killer cells to the trophoblast organoids so that they could mimic the conditions where the placenta implants itself. They identified particular proteins that were crucial to helping the organoids develop. These proteins will contribute to successful implantation, allowing the placenta to invade the uterus and transform the mother's arteries. "This is the only time that we know of where a normal cell invades and transforms an artery, and these cells are coming from another individual, the baby," said Professor Moffett, who is also a Fellow at King's College, Cambridge. "If the cells aren't able to invade properly, the arteries in the womb don't open up and so the placenta -- and therefore the baby -- are starved of nutrients and oxygen. That's why you get problems later on in pregnancy, when there just isn't enough blood to feed the baby and it either dies or is very tiny." The researchers also found several genes that regulate blood flow and help with this implantation, which Professor Moffett says provide pointers for future research to better understand pre-eclampsia and similar disorders. Dr Margherita Turco, from the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Switzerland and co-lead of this work, added: "Despite affecting millions of women a year worldwide, we still understand very little about pre-eclampsia. Women usually present with pre-eclampsia at the end of pregnancy, but really to understand it -- to predict it and prevent it -- we have to look at what's happening in the first few weeks. "Using 'mini-placentas', we can do just that, providing clues as to how and why pre-eclampsia occurs. This has helped us unpick some of the key processes that we should now focus on far more. It shows the power of basic science in helping us understand our fundamental biology, something that we hope will one day make a major difference to the health of mothers and their babies." The research was supported by Wellcome, the Royal Society, European Research Council and Medical Research Council.