Nautilus Biotechnology, Inc. and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) announced a partnership to explore the utility of the Nautilus platform by studying specific protein targets in diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a rare and often fatal childhood cancer. The goal of the partnership between Nautilus and TGen is to better understand the epigenetic mechanisms at work in DIPG by interrogating the proteoform landscape of specific proteins at the single-molecule level. In doing so, TGen plans to explore the combination of alterations and modifications present on these proteins (proteoforms) that are not possible to detect by peptide-based protein analysis methods.

This collaboration represents the fifth early collaboration program for Nautilus as it advances towards broader platform access in 2023 and commercial launch in 2024. DIPG is a brain tumor that occurs in an area of the brainstem (the pons) which controls many of the body's most vital functions such as breathing, blood pressure, and heart rate. Because of its location in the brain and how rapidly it progresses, DIPG is difficult to treat and is regarded as a high-grade malignant brain tumor.

DIPG is characterized by specific mutations in genes coding for histone proteins. These affected histones then reprogram the epigenome, ultimately leading to cancer.