PERSIST-SEQ: International research consortium aims to build a reproducible single-cell sequencing workflow to capture tumour persistence

A new international consortium of academic and industrial leaders in the field of cancer research is pleased to announce the launch of “PERSIST-SEQ”. PERSIST-SEQ formally launched on 1^st of July 2021. This collaborative research program aims to provide the cancer research community with a new gold standard workflow for single-cell sequencing by developing and validating best practices as well as generating and analysing high-quality data. The project aims to empower the scientific community to unravel drug resistance and develop smarter therapeutic strategies to better treat cancer and prevent resistance. PERSIST-SEQ is a five-year public-private partnership, funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), and led by the Oncode Institute and AstraZeneca.

In order to achieve this goal, PERSIST-SEQ will develop a standardized approach to single-cell sequencing workflows for the investigation of cells pre-treatment. Importantly, PERSIST-SEQ will employ an open access model to build and sustain its benchmarking procedures and centralized European data infrastructure. This model reduces duplication of effort, thereby promoting collaboration across disciplines and ensuring efficient adoption of state-of-the-art single cell technologies. By presenting an approach which is replicable, the PERSIST-SEQ consortium will facilitate a further investigation of unaddressed tumours and therapies. Therefore, the real impact of the project will stem from the growth of innovation capacity associated with the use of this approach across academic and industrial centres around the world.

Ultan McDermott (AstraZeneca), industrial co-lead of PERSIST-SEQ, said:

“Drug resistance in cancer is one of the greatest causes of mortality and despite increasing success with targeted therapies in the clinic, how cancer cells survive drug treatment is still not well understood. We are excited to co-lead this European industry-academic partnership, using state-of-the-art single-cell sequencing to characterise 5 million single cells over 5 years to understand and overcome drug resistance.”

Prof. Alexander van Oudenaarden (Hubrecht Institute), Principal Investigator of PERSIST-SEQ, commented:

“I am very excited to be part of this consortium. Not only because of the importance of understanding tumour drug resistance, but also because we will perform this project in close collaboration with industrial partners. I am sure we will learn a lot from each other.”

Read the PERSIST-SEQ consortium press release here.

Lygature’s role in PERSIST-SEQ

“Both the goals of this project and the group of partners involved will make this a project that will be exciting for us to support. We are also looking forward to communicate the project’s successes to the outside world as much as possible” – Herman Verheij, Senior Program Manager at Lygature

• Program management. Lygature co-leads the management of the PERSIST-SEQ project. Together with AstraZeneca and the Oncode Institute, Lygature will coordinate and manage this multi-stakeholder program on a day-to-day basis. Among others, Lygature is responsible for facilitating internal communication and information distribution within the consortium. Moreover, Lygature ensures transparency, stimulates collaboration between partners and monitors the effective execution of the work plan and its progress. Other activities include creation and alignment of work processes, resource management and timely reporting of project deliverables and activities. In addition, Lygature provides to the consortium its specifically developed IT platform, which includes a publication approval system to safeguard scientific confidentiality and enable smooth dissemination of consortium results. 
   
• Communication and Dissemination. Lygature leads the Communication and Dissemination work on PERSIST-SEQ. This work starts with the development of the project communication and dissemination strategy. The goal of this strategy is to raise the public and scientific awareness of the project and communicate its progress to its target audiences as well as to disseminate PERSIST-SEQ’s results to the scientific community and the general public in the most efficient way. Lygature will achieve these goals through regular communication on PERSIST-SEQ’s website and social media channels, and public outreach through targeted communication campaigns on the project online channels as well as through presentations about PERSIST-SEQ on scientific and non-scientific events.

Find out more about the PERSIST-SEQ project and Lygature’s role within it here.

Lygature together with

Acknowledgement of support

PERSIST-SEQ receives funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No. 101007937. This Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA. See www.imi.europa.eu for more details.

Disclaimer

This communication reflects the author's view and neither IMI, nor the European Union, EFPIA, or any Associated Partners are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.