the immune systems of 1,000 healthy people over an age range of 20 to 70 years.
“Our findings will lead to additional studies and possibly new diagnostic tests for inflammatory, autoimmune, oncological, and infectious diseases, as well as companion diagnostics for therapeutics,” Matthew Albert, co-coordinator of the Milieu Interieur project and director of the immunology department at Institut Pasteur, said in a statement about the study’s publication.
McDade is hoping that the Milieu Interieur project will become a showcase for the usefulness of the TruCulture system to Myriad RBM’s primary customers—pharmaceutical companies that use the company’s varied panels of molecular tests as tools for drug discovery and clinical trial work.
One of Myriad RBM’s main aims is to work together with pharmaceutical companies to develop new products called “companion diagnostics”—in other words, tests that identify individuals who can benefit from a particular drug, and those who can’t. If drug companies can weed out the non-responders, they can conduct smaller, less expensive clinical trials that have a higher chance of success. Once the drug is on the market, doctors can rely on the companion diagnostic to tailor treatment to best meet a specific patient’s needs. TruCulture is one component of Myriad RBM’s suite of tools for developing these diagnostics.
Aside from the missing protein in two of the 25 participants in the early Milieu Interieur trial, the TruCulture assay results have revealed more hints about the degree of difference in the immune responses of healthy individuals. For example, some participants produced levels of one protein that were as much as 400 times greater than the amounts produced by other individuals, in response to the same immune system stimulant.
“You can really get a fingerprint of your own immune system,” McDade says.
TruCulture was designed as a simpler, more foolproof substitute for the usual many-step process that labs have been using to test the immune response, McDade says.
Under older methods, experienced lab staffers would be needed to draw a blood sample, isolate the immune cells from the blood, and grow them in a test tube culture. But the results could vary considerably from one lab to another—which makes it hard for different researchers to compare their data and draw valid conclusions.
In the TruCulture system, a whole blood sample is drawn directly into a tube containing a culture medium, which contains nutrients to keep the immune cells alive so
