Reference #: 1699
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for Engineering Immune Responses with Programmable Transcription Factors.
Background:
The regulation immune activation pathways are the bedrock of immunotherapy treatments for cancer and infectious diseases. Strategies for activation typically include administering molecular adjuvants or other inflammatory cues composed of salt or oil emulsion mixtures, oligonucleotides, or lipids, which ultimately promote transcription and translation of inflammasome genes. These strategies are used widely across immunotherapy technologies but often fail to generate optimal immune response landscapes and can even harm healthy tissue.
Invention Description:
Although genetic control is now possible with Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) technologies therapeutic applications remain limited due to insufficient safety and intracellular delivery properties. To circumvent these challenges, we are developing programmable transcription factors to provide direct immune regulation. We have developed a class of artificial transcription factor (ATFs) proteins for regulating immune pathways. These ATFs will enable direct control of gene transcription and in turn translation of key proteins associated with immune cell signaling, differentiation, and migration pathways. The goals for this project are twofold: to regulate immune signaling genes to enhance antigen presentation and to enable chemical control of the timing and magnitude of function.
Potential Applications:
This project could be used in immunotherapy treatments for cancer and infectious diseases or be used in the delivery of vaccines.
Advantages and Benefits:
The impact of this work will extend beyond developing a toolbox for regulating individual genes but will also enable direct control of immune pathways for improving immune checkpoint blockade, molecular vaccine, and adoptive cell-transfer therapies.