Partnerships and Discovery Services

Metastasis is a complex process that has frustrated most attempts at drug discovery. To succeed in this area, it is important to understand the complete metastasis biology process and determine the rate-limiting critical steps.
Mestastop has created an in vitro phenotypic assay platform METAssay^TM that completely dissects metastasis biology into multiple steps, each mimicking a particular facet of metastasis, and summatively all of them will define successful metastasis. Additionally, each assay in the platform can differentiate the functional differences between growing and moving tumour cells belonging to the same tumour. This is critical, as successful metastasis targeting would require targeting the cells with a moving phenotype, especially when they are hiding in some secondary tissue, trying to modulate the environment for macro metastasis. The METAssay^TM platform emphasises the latter stages of metastasis, including survival in blood, successful extravasation and the subsequent survival and colonization axis in the secondary tissue.

In the absence of the right tools for in vitro triaging, anti-metastasis drug discovery often sees a bottleneck in the in-vivo models. The best metastasis in vivo model is the spontaneous orthotopic model, but it sometimes takes as long as four to six months, and the efficiency rate is poor. Therefore, one must start with many animals, increasing both time and cost, which is not ideal. Mestastop’s In-vivo platform METVivo^TM has engineered cancer cells to make them more metastatic, and as a result, liver metastasis for colorectal cancer orthotopic models takes just six weeks. The take rate for mesenteric lymph node metastasis is 100%, and that for liver metastasis is 90%, with rare metastasis events like abdominal wall and bone also observed. The study can be either endpoint or kinetic.

METFIND^TM Covers two platforms; METAssay^TM and METVivo^TM. It can help one understand the potential of an anticancer lead/candidate on the metastatic cascade. Currently, the platform is available for Colorectal Cancer (in vitro and in vivo and patient samples), Triple-negative breast cancer (in vitro only, in vivo in development) and Tongue cancer (in vitro patient samples only).
Note: Most of the assays can be performed in both 2D and 3D. Patient samples can be studied as pure tumoroids too.

METFIND^TM spans the entire spectrum of cancer metastasis biology of early-stage research. Our rapidly expanding Discovery Biology team works on cutting edge research across cell engineering, functional assays, biophysical characterization and biomarker discovery. We bring to the table deep expertise in machine learning biology of cancer metastasis. Being industry experts, we have a proven track record of offering flexible business models with cost-effective and accelerated R&D timescales.

Please write to us with your assay specifications at bd@mestastop.com