Synthetic immunology and virology to bioengineer the next-generation research tools, molecular biosensors, therapeutics, and vaccines.
Bioengineering T cell receptor specificity
T cell receptor (TCR) can detect as low as a few copies of human leukocyte antigen (HLA or MHC class I) presenting specific peptides on the surface of virus-infected and cancer cells. Specific recognition of these cells leads to their elimination by T cells with high specificity and ultra sensitivity.
SyntIV is using direceted evolution to develop high affinity antibodies that mimic TCR and recognize the HLA presenting specific peptides (viral or cancer-derived) with high affinity and specificity.
These antibodies can detect and mediate elimination of virus-infected and cancer cells either as soluble antibodies or reformatted as chimeric antigen receptors on T and NK cells.
Synthetic penetrating antibodies
Some antigens, such as viral envelope proteins and cancer proteins, have evolved mechanisms to mask their target site and evade the immune system.
SyntIV develops antibodies with extended antigen recognition site to recognize occluded target sites by building and screening unique focused synthetic antibody libraries.
Ratnapriya et al. Cell Reports 2021
