10x Genomics (Nasdaq: TXG) announced a multi-project research collaboration with Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center to investigate single cell and spatial technologies in solid tumors and blood cancers, according to a company press release.

The company said the collaboration marks its first clinical research initiative to extend into blood cancers. Two projects are planned under the agreement.

The first project will use 10x Genomics' Flex Apex and Xenium platforms, with plans to expand to the Atera platform, to analyze tumor samples from bladder cancer patients treated with antibody-drug conjugates, immune checkpoint inhibitors and other therapies. The research aims to correlate drug target expression and tumor microenvironment characteristics with treatment response and clinical outcomes, with the goal of identifying biomarkers that could inform therapy selection.

The second project will use the Flex Apex platform to investigate residual disease detection in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), exploring whether single cell analysis can improve upon existing methods for monitoring residual leukemic cells after treatment.

Lawrence Fong, MD, scientific director of Fred Hutch's Integrated Immunotherapy Research Center, will lead the collaboration for Fred Hutch. "This project will help us better characterize the cellular and molecular responses to cancer treatments," Fong said.

Serge Saxonov, co-founder and CEO of 10x Genomics, said the collaboration addresses a gap in understanding which patients benefit from specific therapies. "Single cell and spatial biology let us look directly at the biology that drives treatment response, whether it's in a tumor or in the blood," Saxonov said.

The two organizations also plan to develop a framework for clinical reporting that could define how single cell and spatial data might support treatment planning. The collaboration is part of 10x Genomics' broader effort to build a foundation for potential future diagnostic applications, alongside a planned CLIA-certified laboratory.