Team:Stockholm
With “ABBBA” against Cancer
Although many effective treatments for cancer are already available, it still represents the leading cause of death worldwide Why is this so? Many cancer types are very difficult to detect with nowadays techniques. This makes it for physicians and lab technicians difficult to catch the disease when it is the most vulnerable - right at its beginning. Studies showed that treatment for many different diseases, far beyond the cancer field, are more efficiency when the therapy is started in an early diseases state.Unfortunately, modern medicine has not yet found an appropriate diagnostic tool to overcome detection of small quantities of biomarkers.
The iGEM Team Stockholm, consisting of students from Karolinska Institutet and the Royal Institute of Technology KTH, has made it their task to develop a novel technique to measure even small amounts of disease biomarker in body fluids, the “Affibody-Based Bacterial Biomarker Assay” (ABBBA). This method will be a biological measure to overcome thresholds of most chemically based diagnostic methods which are the canonical tool in clinics. In our new assay, we will sensitize bacteria specifically towards a certain disease antigen (e.g. HER-2, a marker for breast cancer cells) by creating a new fusion receptor consisting of a strong antigen binder, called Affibody molecule, and a membrane-standing signal transduction domain. As soon as the antigen binds to the Affibody molecule it will trigger a signaling cascade within the cell leading to an increased production of fluorescent molecules which can be read-out.
With this assay, small concentrations of biomarker in body fluid samples, which are currently not measurable, will no longer be overlooked. This will hopefully lead to an earlier disease diagnosis and increased survival chances for the patients.
Our project integrates the power of different fields of modern biology such as biomedicine, structural biology, biotechnology, molecular biology and bioinformatics. With the support of our universities and different external partner such as Atlas Antibodies, HealthCap, Sigma-Aldrich, Qiagen, GATC Biotech, BioBasic Ink., Eppendorf and Snapgene, we want to show a new way in early disease diagnosis.
Do you want to help?
Any and all sponsorship is welcome and appreciated! We have created a crowd funding site to help our friends, family, and fans support the project! Click hereto make a donation of any amount and be rewarded with cool Stockholm iGem swag!
