Ludesi's 2D Gel Image Analysis Enabled Discovery of Potential Therapeutic Targets for Melanoma Tumors

Ludesi Corporation, developer of the award-winning Ludesi Image Analysis Service and the Ludesi REDFIN software for two-dimensional electrophoresis gels, today announced that researchers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, National Eye Institute at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda Maryland, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been able to discover potential therapeutic targets for melanoma tumors using Ludesi's 2D gel image and data analysis.

Melanoma has for several decades been amongst the fastest growing cancer types in the western world. In this project the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, National Institutes of Health and Chapel Hill, performed kinetic proteomics of melanoma tumors as they progress in vivo to better understand the complex interactions between the tumors and their native environments.

Proteins from the tumors were separated on 2D gels, and the resulting images were sent to Ludesi for analysis using their proprietary image analysis system. Univariate and multivariate statistical tests were used to identify trends and co-regulation in protein expression. The results were validated by immunohistochemistry and immunoblots.

An important finding in the study was the dynamic nature of melanomas which highlights the need to study the disease progression at multiple time points for biomarker and therapeutic target discovery. The researchers also identified several potential therapeutic targets for cancer therapy that had been previously unknown.

"It is great to see a success case like this. Our congratulations to the researchers who have done a tremendous job over the last couple of years. It is good to hear from yet another group that our technology made such a positive difference in their work" commented Ludesi's CEO Ola Forsstrom-Olsson.