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

癌症细胞治疗的一个重要部分是确保抗癌细胞(称为T细胞)不会失去对抗癌细胞或感染的能力，这是一种称为T细胞衰竭的功能失调状态。T细胞耗竭是癌细胞治疗失败的关键因素。然而，目前的医院和制药公司缺乏测量T细胞耗竭的手段，这突显了对有助于治疗决策的新工具的需求。医生需要易于使用的工具，使他们能够监测患者的免疫系统是否因T细胞耗尽而变得功能失调，因为他们可以开一种名为ICI的药物来逆转T细胞耗竭。临床实践的这一重大改进将有助于在治疗开始失败之前有效地识别可能需要改变治疗计划的患者。此外，制药公司需要广泛的测试来监控参加临床试验的患者，以便选择他们进行登记，将他们分组并监测他们对治疗的反应。因此，有必要进行临床测试，以监测患者的免疫系统在CAR-T细胞治疗期间是否功能失调。该项目汇集了下一代芯片实验室技术所需的专业知识和组件。通过将一家德国初创公司设计的独特蛋白质整合到生物芯片上，该项目旨在自动分析T细胞的活动，从而开发一种尖端的T细胞耗尽测试。该应用程序是由英国一家开发自动分析血液的生物芯片的公司提出的。他们有机会与一家使用人工智能的德国公司合作开发新的蛋白质--他们的人工智能平台识别出能够标记耗尽的T细胞的蛋白质。这些蛋白质在标记细胞方面表现出很高的准确性，只需15分钟就能得出结果。这些技术的成功整合提供了一个重要的市场机会，预计到2032年将达到51.7亿GB。两家公司希望在一个工业研究项目上合作，修改在英国开发的生物芯片，并能够使用在德国设计的这些新蛋白质进行自动化测试。封闭的团队正在寻求英国创新投资，以开展生物医学工程和基于软件的研究计划，使团队能够证明生物芯片可以自动化，用于CAR-T细胞治疗的快速测试。

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.