New Repertoire Room podcast episode: Arman Aksoy (Obsidian Therapeutics) on the hurdles and advantages of Implementing TCR-seq in Biotech

We are thrilled to release Episode 3 of The Repertoire Room!

This month, host and ImmuneWatch co-founder Sander Wuyts is joined by Arman Aksoy, Director of Computational Biology at Obsidian Therapeutics. Obsidian is on a mission to fight advanced solid tumors and is therefore developing engineered Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) therapies like their lead candidate, OBX-115.

But how do you take TCR repertoire sequencing from an academic tool to a robust, scalable process that informs clinical development?

In this episode, Sander and Arman go deep on the real-world hurdles of implementing TCR-seq in a fast-paced biotech environment.

Tune in to learn:

• The "Hybrid Scientist": Why combining wet lab and computational skills is a "super advantage" for understanding data.
• The 4 Biggest Hurdles: From skipping feasibility studies to the trap of summary metrics, Arman shares the critical challenges his team faced.
• "Chasing the Red Queen": Why building in-house TCR specificity annotation pipelines is a "hassle" and how Obsidian found a solution with ImmuneWatch DETECT.
• Beyond the Data: How TCR-seq data became essential for process development, quality control, and immuno-monitoring at Obsidian.

This is an interesting listen for any scientist or leader working to integrate high-throughput sequencing into a therapeutic pipeline.

Listen to the Full Episode

• Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/00h1Nfk4UsJFMHcvvS5wap
• Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41q0fUqeVo&feature=youtu.be

Want the key takeaways? We’ve written a full-length article on the 4 biggest hurdles Obsidian overcame. Read the deep-dive blog post here