Nicolas Wolikow, co-founder & CEO of Cure 51:
Who we are
At Cure51, we study a rare and fascinating question: why do some patients survive the most aggressive cancers, far beyond all expectations?
Our Rosalind study focuses on metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), one of the deadliest cancers, and specifically on the exceptional survivors within this population.
Our challenge
To understand what sets PDAC survivors apart biologically, we needed to go deep: Xenium 5K spatial transcriptomics on 100+ FFPE samples, capturing gene expression directly within tissue architecture.
These samples are rare. Irreplaceable. And central to everything we’re building. That’s why choosing the right partner mattered enormously and why we turned to Explicyte.
What Explicyte did
Over six months of close collaboration, their team handled sample qualification, FFPE preparation, and full Xenium 5K execution with the rigor these samples deserved.
Weekly touchpoints, clean reporting, and sharp technical input at every critical step kept the project on track from start to finish.
The outcome
The result? High-quality data, delivered on time and we’re already putting it to work.
We are now actively exploring this unique spatial dataset and have identified new targets of interest in PDAC. This is exactly the kind of insight that can open new paths for patients who currently have very few options.
A big thank you to the Explicyte team for their expertise and partnership throughout this study. This is the kind of collaboration that turns ambitious science into tangible progress. 🙏