A personal approach to detecting cancer

It’s the sobering—and all-too regular—experience for any cancer survivor: waiting for their doctor to reveal the test results that show if the disease has returned. “These are the moments where everybody in the family takes a deep breath,” says Chris Hall, CEO of Personalis, a biotechnology company based in Fremont, California.



Quick and accurate results can help patients map m ore proactive treatments and hopefully improve their odds of survival. Personalis has taken major strides towards this goal with NeXT Personal, a new kind of blood test that can spot the unique DNA signature of a patient’s tumor. Hall says the ultra-sensitive test can potentially spot cancers months earlier and open the door to an ever-widening array of therapies. 







“The genetics of each patient’s tumor are unique, even for the same cancer type. We’re moving toward a world where people will be getting diagnostic tests and therapies that are tailored based on those genetics,” Hall says. These personalized, next-generation technologies that can help detect and treat cancer earlier have earned Personalis a spot on Fast Company ’s list of the world’s Most Innovative Companies for 2024.



AN OPENESS TO NEW APPROACHES



Personalis’s approach is centered on using whole-genome sequencing—as opposed to the exome or targeted sequencing in most current tests—to analyze a tumor sample to identify the genetic code, or DNA signature, of a patient’s tumor. The biggest challenge is detecting that same DNA signature in a blood sample from the patient when very few tumor DNA fragments are present. NeXT Personal—a tumor-informed molecular residual disease (MRD) platform—is one of several Personalis technologies that can solve this astonishingly complex puzzle by reducing the extraneous information (called “noise”) to detect very low traces of tumor DNA from a blood sample.



Implementing these solutions took time and iteration. Their first efforts at developing a commercial product involved sequencing a subset of a tumor’s genome and applying data science approaches. When that method failed to deliver the desired level of performance, the company abandoned the approach and arrived at NeXT Personal.



Hall says this experimentation with different approaches has been crucial to the success of Personalis. “Start tabula rasa: ‘How do I do this the right way? How do we make a big leap in sensitivity, rather than an incremental step?’” he says. “That’s the way we attacked it, and I think that really drove innovation.”



MISSION-DRIVEN INNOVATION



The wisdom (and data) gained from failed experiences resulted in Personalis developing technologies capable of finding one tumor DNA fragment among millions. These tools enable the detection of a cancer’s DNA signature at the faintest level from a blood sample, before the cancer grows larger.



For Hall, it’s impossible to separate the company’s innovations from the patients who stand to benefit from them. “This is a very real product that people are depending on to make big decisions in their lives,” Hall says. “The technologies we’re developing might be used on your mother or your grandmother or your child.”



The human-centric approach permeates all levels of the company—and informs hiring decisions. Managers will look for potential team members who are driven by more than the scientific challenge: Hall says many Personalis employees have firsthand experiences dealing with cancer. 



According to Hall, this passion drives innovation: “If you’re in it for the mission, then you hunker down.”