Protea Biosciences Group Inc. announced that it had entered into a Collaboration Research Agreement with the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC), Division of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. The goal is to co-develop a new diagnostic methodology that will provide cancer cell molecular profiles, including the distribution of drugs within cancer cells and molecular response indicators, to improve patient treatment and outcomes. Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that boosts the body's natural defenses to fight the cancer. It uses substances made by the body or in a laboratory to improve or restore the function of the body's natural immune system. Immunotherapies can alter the immune environment of the tumor, leading to better therapeutic outcome. The total Immunotherapy market is estimated to be worth approximately $14 billion by 2019, rising to $34 billion by 2024, as the treatment of cancer patients undergoes drastic changes over the next decade. Immunotherapies are increasingly being integrated into treatments for solid tumors - drugs that have great promise for some patients but are expensive and come with some significant adverse events. However currently, standard clinical measurements only provide serum levels of drug and provide little or no information on changes within the tumor. Patients currently undergo costly therapy with significant potential side effects but without a robust means to evaluate the impact of the therapy in the tumor microenvironment. For new immunotherapies to have maximum impact in a cost-effective way, it will be essential to generate more molecular information from tumor samples that can support medical decision making at the start of, and throughout the process of, treatment of the cancer. Developing the technology to provide this molecular information is the goal of this joint research collaboration.