Dr. Bhaswar Maity, is currently working with Bio-Rad Laboratories as a senior Product Manager. He holds a MSc in Biochemistry and Phd degree in the field of Human Genetics. In his commercial career he served 15 years at various life science companies, in India & abroad. During past one & half decades, Dr. Bhaswar has worked with many Genomics & life science technologies; Sanger sequencing to Next gen Sequencing, qPCR to Digital Gene Expression, Microarray to Mass-Array Genotyping, Molecular Microbiology to Flow Cytometry at various positions; application support, Business Development, Product management & sales leadership. Trained as a Forensic DNA expert, he has transitioned his interest into human disease analysis field with various Genomics technologies.

With its ability to provide absolute quantification, and its very high sensitivity and specificity, droplet digital PCR is the method of choice to study disease-associated genetic changes particularly when present at low levels or where monitoring is necessary. A series of vignettes will be provided in which the power of droplet digital PCR will be demonstrated in diagnostics and monitoring of EGFR mutations in lung cancer with an emphasis on T790M mutations.

Professor Dobrovic heads the Translational Genomics & Epigenomics Laboratory at University of Melbourne Department of Surgery. His laboratory is at the forefront of a translational research - clinical implementation interface that translates laboratory research findings into affordable diagnostics to benefit the patient population. Prof. Dobrovic has made a particular contribution to innovative methodology in cancer molecular diagnostics.

He has authored more than 200 publications in leading scientific journals

Since the first description of TERT promoter mutations among melanomas in 2013, TERT has been found in at least 50 other cancer types and can be the most common mutation among certain cancer types. Mutations in the TERT promoter region are restricted to two hotspots, 124 and 146 base pairs upstream of the transcription start sites, often referred to as C228T and C250T. Overtime these mutations have assumed greater importance as markers for prognostication, being associated with shorter survival and worse outcomes. However, detection of TERT promoter mutation can be challenging in tissues with low tumor cellularity, high heterogeneity and poor quality DNA, especially if they are formalin fixed. The problem is further compounded by the high GC content of the region (~80%) that can form strong secondary structures impairing strand denaturation. Validated assays often use an additive like the Q solution and locked nucleic acids (LNA) on a droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) platform, to improve the chance of amplification. Recently, 7-deaza-2’-deoxyguanosine-5’-triphosphate (7-Deaza-dGTP) has also been tested as an alternative to LNA. This presentation will highlight the utility of 7-Deaza-dGTP in TERT promoter analysis using DNA from fresh frozen and FFPE samples of glioblastoma (GBMs), with a known TERT and IDH status assessed by Sanger sequencing previously.

Summary: ddPCR is a very sensitive testing system that can be used to amplify and detect molecular changes in GC rich regions of the genome. However, an appropriate additive that helps in amplification of such complex regions might be required.

Dr. Rekha Pai, is a professor at the Department of Pathology, Christian Medical College, Vellore and supervises the day-to-day activities of the molecular pathology laboratory of the department. She trained in microbiology for a Masters’ at Vellore and then went on the complete her PhD on molecular characterization of S.pneumoniae following which she continued her work on the pneumococcus as a postdoctoral fellow at the Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, USA. Upon her return, she took on the responsibility of developing the molecular pathology laboratory and has worked towards introducing several molecular diagnostic assays into the routine workflow. She is also a part of an active research laboratory focusing on endocrine, colorectal and brain tumors and is a part of several ongoing intra- and extramurally funded projects. She has published in several national and international journals.

Dr Corner holds BSc and Phd degree, obtained from the University of Leeds, Centre for Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology. Later, he continued with several Postdoctoral positions in Leeds and Cambridge. In his commercial career he served 7 years at Applied Biosystems supporting qPCR systems, followed by 6 years at Ingenuity Systems.

Dr Corner Joined RainDance Technologies in 2011 and became part of Bio-Rad after the acquisition of RainDance in 2017.

Since 2018, he is working at Digital Biology Group as a Market Development Scientist.

Dr. Bhaswar Maity, is currently working with Bio-Rad Laboratories as a senior Product Manager. He holds a MSc in Biochemistry and Phd degree in the field of Human Genetics. In his commercial career he served 15 years at various life science companies, in India & abroad. During past one & half decades, Dr. Bhaswar has worked with many Genomics & life science technologies; Sanger sequencing to Next gen Sequencing, qPCR to Digital Gene Expression, Microarray to Mass-Array Genotyping, Molecular Microbiology to Flow Cytometry at various positions; application support, Business Development, Product management & sales leadership. Trained as a Forensic DNA expert, he has transitioned his interest into human disease analysis field with various Genomics technologies.

For the last decade, Celsee has been a pioneer in developing single cells applications now used all over the world. Bio-Rad’s acquisition of Celsee in April 2020 has been received with excitement and opened new opportunities. One of these new efforts has been the expansion of Celselect applications to new markets with improved performance. Celselect technology is used on the Genesis system to process circulating tumor cell (CTC) enrichment and enumeration. It has been designed for use in academic, clinical, and pharmaceutical labs that seek to study rare populations of cells within complex heterogeneous liquid samples. It can facilitate retrieval of isolated cells to be used in additional methods of analysis for proteomic and genomic expression or perform immunohistochemical staining. The system is designed around an open platform for user developed assays, markers, and automated microscopy and counting algorithms. During this talk will discuss the importance of CTCs, the various workflows for different Celselect applications on the Genesis instrument, important data sets, and potential synergies with other Bio-Rad assays.

Key points:

1. Celsee is a Bio-Rad company producing innovative technologies to compliment and grow existing Bio-Rad technologies
2. Celselect technologies contribute multiple assays for CTC research including rare cell enumeration and enrichment

Brandan earned a BA in applied physics from Albion College, a BSE in biomedical engineering from Columbia University, and an MSE and PhD from the University of Michigan, both in biomedical engineering. He started his industrial career as a Field Application Scientist with Celsee in 2018. His first two years with the company were spent supporting collaborations and assisting early customers with assay development. When he wasn’t in the field, Brandan spent time in the lab contributing his field experience toward improved product development. In 2020, Brandan transitioned to his current role of Product Manager after the acquisition of Celsee by Bio-Rad. He now uses his experience in the lab and with customers to advance Celsee’s Celselect technologies and has started working with Bio-Rad’s SureCell ATAC-Seq product.

Accurate quantification of multiplexed targets in a single tube can be challenging due to reaction mix monopolization by the higher abundance targets. Partitioning these reactions into thousands of sub-reactions and subsequently analyzing each for the presence of the target of interest removes this bias and allows for the accurate count of individual targets within a single reaction. This talk will present examples of advanced multiplexing (3 to 5 plex using 2 colors and 8plex using 4 colors) and describe assay setup and optimization strategies.

Francisco Bizouarn joined Bio-Rad in 2000 to support quantitative PCR (qPCR) technology as a Field Applications Specialist (FAS) in the southeast United States. In 2006, he moved into the role of International FAS for our global Gene Expression Division to promote best practices in qPCR around the world. In 2011, he began working on droplet digital PCR applications (ddPCR) and joined the Digital Biology group. Currently, his focus is supporting and promoting best practices in quantitation, detection, and sample discrimination applications that take advantage of the high resolution and sensitivity provided by the power of Droplet partitioning.