Press Release Summary: Bangalore, March 24, 2008: Cellworks Research India Ltd, the R&D wing of California based company Cellworks Group Inc and Lifeline Multi Speciality Hospitals have announced one year research collaboration in the area of oncology with emphasis on study of the role of Tumor Stem Cells in cancer pathology and progression. This collaborative research will elucidate novel biochemical markers to identify disease progression and patient sub-types enabling solutions for personalized medicine. This research project will be based on Cellworks proprietary iC-PHYST Tumor Cell platform which is Multi Drug Resistance (MDR) Aware technology.
Press Release Body: This collaborative research will exploit the unique prowess of Cellworks technology iC-PHYS, a proprietary in silico platform, which provides a disease physiology aligned dynamic representation at the bio-molecular abstraction level. The technology platform iC-PHYST Tumor Cell, is MDR Aware and enables virtual prototyping to incorporate drug-resistance factors in the drug discovery process. This prototyping minimizes efficacy issues due to drug resistance that may show up at clinical trials stages. Also the various cancer phenotypes are comprehensively included in this technology platform.
According to Dr. J S RajKumar - Founder and Chairman, Lifeline Hospitals; "Lifeline Hospitals is pioneering Clinical Trials using Cell based therapies. One significant need for us to offer differentiated solutions in the area of oncology is to gain deep knowledge of the sequential cellular level events which take place during cancer progression. We are partnering with Cellworks Group Inc. to better understand the details of the cellular bio-chemical pathways and proteins involved in the differentiation process. Cellworks team with its in-depth expertise in Cellular modeling and rich library of in silico based proprietary platforms has been identified to be the optimal partner in this exciting and emergent area. Lifeline is proud to be associated with a pioneering company like Cellworks."
"I am very excited with the potential of this partnership" said Taher Abbasi, CEO of Cellworks. "Molecular bio-markers identification is fundamental for understanding cancer progression and for adaptive treatment solutions for maximum efficacy and minimized drug resistance. Transparency into all cancer phenotypes and intermediate nodes simultaneously through the iC-PHYST platform and correlation with the clinical data points will expand opportunities for personalized medicine in cancer treatment".
According to Dr. Anand Kumar, Chairman Board of Cellworks Research India Ltd - \"It gives me great pleasure to see two best in class companies coming together through this engagement model. It is very exciting to observe the extensibility of the Cellworks' solutions to a very new facet of oncology research\".
About Lifeline Multi Speciality Hospital: Lifeline Multi Speciality Hospital is a landmark tertiary care health destination managed by Lifeline Group of Hospitals. First of its kind in South East Chennai, the 225 bedded hospital has the state-of-the-art technology over virtually all specialities. The technology advantage is complemented by the man power excellence providing sophisticated and specialised medical care at affordable cost. Lifeline Multi Speciality Hospital caters to the medical requirements of a very large cross section of people. More information on Lifeline Multi Speciality Hospital can be found in www.lifeline-hospital.com.
About Cellworks: Cellworks Group Inc. is a California Incorporated company with its R&D facility (Cellworks Research India Ltd) based in Bangalore, India. Cellworks adopts a multi-disciplinary and analytical approach to solve biological problems and is part of a new technology wave that will change people's perception of the diagnosis and treatment of human disease. More information regarding Systems Biology approach to drug discovery and Cellworks expertise can be found in www.cellworksgroup.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For editorial queries contact Manpreet / Tania of PRHUB @ (080) 22483007 or manpreet@prhub.com, tania@prhub.com