A novel diagnostic tool leveraging AI for protein design and microfluidics for better cell therapy management

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A vital part of cancer cell therapy is to ensure that cells fighting the cancer (called T-cells) don't lose their ability to fight cancer cells or infections, a dysfunctional state called T-cell exhaustion. T-cell exhaustion plays a crucial role in the failure of cancer cell therapy. However, current hospitals and pharma companies lack the means to measure T-cell exhaustion, highlighting the need for new tools that can aid in treatment decisions.Doctors need easy to use tools that enable them to monitor if a patient's immune system becomes dysfunctional due to T-cell exhaustion, as they could prescribe a class of drugs called ICI that reverse T-cell exhaustion. This significant improvement in clinical practice would facilitate the efficient identification of patients who may require changes in treatment plans before the therapy starts to fail.Furthermore, pharma companies need extensive tests to monitor the patients enrolled in clinical trials in order to select them for enrollment, stratify them into groups and monitor how they respond to treatment. Consequently, there is a need to have clinical tests that monitor if a patient's immune system becomes dysfunctional during CAR-T cell therapy.The project brings together the expertise and components required for a next-generation lab-on-chip technology. By incorporating unique proteins designed by a German startup on a biochip, the project aims to automatically analyse T-cell activity, enabling the development of a cutting-edge test for T-cell exhaustion.This application is presented by a company in the UK developing biochips that analyse blood automatically. They have an opportunity to work with a German company using AI to develop new proteins - their AI platform identified proteins capable of tagging exhausted T-cells. These proteins exhibit high accuracy in tagging cells, yielding results in just 15 minutes. The successful integration of these technologies presents a significant market opportunity, estimated at £5.17 billion by 2032\.The two companies wish to work together on an industrial research project to modify the biochip developed in the UK and enable the use of these new proteins designed in Germany for automated tests.The enclosed team is seeking Innovate UK investment to conduct a programme of biomedical engineering and software-based research needed to enable the team to prove the biochip can be automated for rapid tests in CAR-T cell therapy.