Team:EPFL
CAPOEIRA
CAncer PersOnalized Encapsulin Immunotherapy and Relapse Assay
Learn more about our project
What is CAPOEIRA ?
While Melanoma remains the deadliest form of skin cancer, immunotherapy approaches can harness our immune system to defeat it! Yet, current immuno-treatments suffer from high costs, limited accessibility, and poor specificity. Our project “CAPOEIRA”, named after the Brazilian self-defense martial-art, exploits the potential of synthetic biology to develop a personalized, cost-effective, and rapid production scheme for cancer vaccine and point-of-care relapse surveillance. First, a bioinformatic pipeline integrating state-of-the-art tools identifies our targets: melanoma neoantigens, the fingerprints of cancer cells. Next, cell-free protein expression rapidly synthesizes a library of encapsulin protein nanocompartments presenting the various neoantigen epitopes. This encapsulin vaccine activates dendritic cells which trigger a T-cell attack on the neoantigen-bearing cancer cells. Nevertheless, we don’t underestimate a defeated villain! To detect potential relapse, we combine techniques including dumbbell probes, rolling circle amplification, isothermal amplification, and CRISPR-Cas12a to detect circulating tumor miRNA and DNA. Ultimately, CAPOEIRA trains the immune system to fight back!
This is CAPOEIRA
Bioinformatics
First, a bioinformatic pipeline integrating state-of-the-art tools identifies our target: melonoma neoantigens, the fingerprints of cancer cells
Vaccine
Next, cell-free protein expression rapidly synthesizes a library of encapsulin protein nanocompartments presenting the various neoantigen epitopes
Dendritic cell Activation
This encapsulin vaccine activates dendritic cells which trigger a T-cell attack on the neoantigen bearing cancer cells
Follow-up
Nevertheless, we don't underestimate a defeated villain! To detect potential relapse we use techniques like CRISPR-Cas12a to detect circulationg tumor miRNA and DNA
Won: Gold Medal Nominated for: Best Therapeutic Project and Best Software