Bioinformatics biotech helps drive forward product development

While she was employed as a post-doc at the CRUK Cambridge Centre, Dr Yvonne Teng spent six months working at Genestack - a Cambridge based small company specialising in bioinformatics solutions for R&D - thanks to support from the Biomedical Research Exchange Programme. 

“This exchange was a new connection between the Cancer Molecular Diagnostics Lab (CMDL) and Genestack Ltd and the first time the CMDL has connected with an industry partner, with the aim of introducing next-generation sequencing technologies into clinical practice. As well as gaining new skills, I learned that it is important not only to be innovative, but that gaining visibility for your new products is critical” Yvonne told us.

Yvonne, together with the team at Genestack developed a new software product, which is currently undergoing testing at the Haematology-Oncology Diagnostics Service Lab at Addenbrooke’s.

Yvonne’s supervisor Dr George Vassiliou added, “This is an excellent scheme that in our case has acted as a catalyst for understanding how to work with industry and has enabled us to forge an excellent working relationship with Genestack, a company whose expertise is closely aligned with our future aims. We hope to introduce the application/software we have developed to the routine diagnosis of patients with haematological cancers.”