Seer has launched its system for categorizing the tens of thousands of proteins within the human body that drive the biologic functions of both life and disease.
The company says its hardware will aim to do for proteomics what next-generation sequencing has done for the field of DNA research by offering deep and rapid analyses on a much wider scale.
The Proteograph product suite relies on a range of magnetic nanoparticles, each engineered to tag themselves to a variety of proteins to prepare them for screening by mass spectrometry.
This allows Seer’s system to isolate and decode protein variants based on amino acid changes driven by single genetic mutations as well as to detect individual protein biomarkers at a range of concentrations.
Over the past year, Seer has made its platform available to its collaboration partners and limited release customers. Now, it aims to make it available more broadly.
The product suite includes an automated preparation instrument, consumables and analysis software, with the ability to process 16 samples in parallel over a period of seven hours. Afterward, samples can be run through nearly any mass spectrometer.
Alongside the launch, Seer has also partnered with biopharma service providers to form a centers of excellence program—which includes Biodesix, Discovery Life Sciences, Evotec, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and Soulbrain—to help drive the adoption of the company’s proteomics research.
At the same time, Seer will work with Discovery Life Sciences and Sciex to establish a proteogenomics consortium to help supply protein-profiling capabilities to genetics researchers with a goal of eventually sequencing 100,000 samples per year.
The multiyear collaboration will have Seer provide its Proteograph suite, while Sciex will deliver its ZenoTOF 7600 high-resolution mass spectrometry system. Discovery Life Sciences, meanwhile, will offer up its genomics services and biospecimen support.
“Rapid acquisition of data speeds development,” Discovery Life Sciences CEO Glenn Bilawsky said in a statement. “This consortium will provide new, highly-scaled and more comprehensive capabilities to develop and deploy novel biomarkers, drug candidates and diagnostics.”