Protea Biosciences Announces Clinical Assay Development Plans

MORGANTOWN, W.Va., Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. (OTCQB: PRGB) ("Protea") announced today that it plans to develop clinical screening assays in various areas of oncology. The assays shall be developed on Bruker's rapifleX MALDI Tissuetyper using Protea's proprietary histology guided mass spectrometry workflows and expertise.

"To develop MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry-based analytical assays, with a potential to improve diagnostic assays in the future, is a natural fit to our business model to commercialize more accurate oncology tests," stated David Halverson, Protea's President. He continued, "Combining the speed of the MALDI Tissuetyper and our proprietary analytical workflows, we are positioned to potentially improve the future diagnosis of a variety of solid tumor cancers, beginning with our work in melanoma."

Protea has already performed initial clinical research studies to use mass spectrometry to more accurately differentiate malignant and benign melanocytic lesions by monitoring protein levels in standard biopsy samples. These workflows performed on melanoma samples shall be transferred to the MALDI Tissuetyper to improve speed and throughput. Protea plans to continue to expand the total patient number of the melanoma assay as part of its Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) validation process over the course of this year. Other solid tumors could also be analyzed with these techniques, and Protea intends to offer resulting analytical assays to Bruker as additional content on their MALDI Tissuetyper platform.

Jürgen Tressel, Head of Tissue Pathology Business Unit at Bruker Daltonics, added: "Bruker has established partnerships with key opinion leaders in the field of tissue pathology in Europe to develop clinical relevant content for tissue differentiation on the MALDI Tissuetyper. Additional models developed by Protea Biosciences can add further value to our MALDI Tissuetyperby content-stacking of assays for multiple tissue types on one system."

About Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.: Protea Biosciences Group, Inc. (OTCQB:PRGB) is a molecular information company providing proprietary, bioanalytical workflows to the pharmaceutical and life science industries. "Molecular information", the generation and bioinformatic processing of very large data sets, is obtained by applying the Company's technology to identify and characterize the proteins, metabolites, lipids and other biologically-active molecules which are the byproducts of all living cells and life forms.

Forward-Looking Statements; This press release may contain statements relating to future results or events, which are forward-looking statements. Words such as "expects", "intends", "plans", "may", "could", "should", "anticipates", "likely", "believes" and words of similar import may identify forward-looking statements. These statements are not historical facts, but instead represent only the Company's belief regarding future events, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of the Company's control. It is possible that the Company's actual results and financial condition may differ, possibly materially, from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. Further, information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company's business and financial and other results, are contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, available at www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release, and we do not undertake any obligation to publicly update or correct any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that subsequently occur or of which we hereafter become aware.

Protea is a registered trademark of Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/protea-announces-clinical-assay-development-plans-300533108.html

SOURCE Protea Biosciences Group, Inc.