Introduction

The industrial tours have always been very fruitful for students to enhance their knowledge. RSG Netherlands organized its first ever company visit to Agendia, an innovative cancer diagnostic company, to give them the flavor of the role of bioinformatics in industrial sector. This visit offered all the students the platform for face to face interaction with the people from different departments of Agendia, their heads and provided the opportunity to visit the laboratory of an innovative company like Agendia.

Agendia at a glance

Agendia, founded in 2003, is located in the science park, Amsterdam. It uses its knowledge and expertise to focus on the practical application of microarray technology and gene expression profiling for the benefit of cancer patients around the world. In 2004, Agendia launched its first clinically validated product; MammaPrint; which is the only FDA-cleared breast recurrence test available to patients and physicians. After examining approximately 25,000 genes from an untreated breast cancer patient population, the most prognostic genes involved in breast cancer metastasis were discovered. Then using a precise bioinformatics algorithm 70 gene expression signature was identified. MammaPrint analyzes these 70 critical genes in breast cancer metastasis to determine a woman’s true risk of recurrence. MammaPrint provides a definitive result of Low Risk or High Risk of metastasis based on which a therapeutic decision can be made that can help deliver more personalized breast cancer treatment. Apart from breast cancer, Agendia is developing gene expression profiles of other types of cancer which they are planning to launch in future as shown in figure.

The visit: Students experience

The number of students registered for this visit was 19; most of them were PhD students with a few Master students. The visit started with the coffee, snacks and with a very short introduction from every student about themselves. This speed dating among students made the environment more interactive and excited. The chair of RSG Netherlands then gave a short talk about RSG board and their mission for creating a scientific and social network for PhD students in the field of bioinformatics. Next, senior product manager Dr. Annuska Glass was invited to give a talk about the company and the role of bioinformatics in achieving their goals for developing cancer gene expression profiles. She started with the introductory overview about the company and then extended her talk with the brief overview of the services they provide, research & development sector, different departments and their interconnectivity with each other and the laboratory information management system (LIMS) which they maintain using oracle database. After that, she explained the pipeline of how MammaPrint was developed, starting from the collection of the samples from the patients till the identification of gene expression signature and the bioinformatics knowledge requirements and its application during this pipeline. There was an ample opportunity for the students to ask questions during her talk and she was answering every students query excitedly and gladly. She also discussed how at each step in the pipeline they have to go for FDA approval and faces different kinds of problems. She ended her talk by giving a short overview about herself and her journey in Agendia from 2003 till today. Finally, it was the time for laboratory visit for which every student was waiting eagerly. During the laboratory visit they showed the sections where they store the samples, do RNA isolation and develop microarray chip using Agilent system. They also explained the importance of the quality check they apply on each sample they are analyzing and the technique with which they measure it. The visit to Agendia then ended up with the drinks session which provided the opportunity to each student with different bioinformatics background, to interact with each other and exchange their ideas.

After the successful company visit to Agendia, RSG Netherlands is planning to organize more such visits in different cities of Netherlands.