UBC iGEM 2021

iGEM 2021 Giant Jamboree Best Diagnostics Nominee and Gold Medal Recipient!

What if we could personalize cancer treatment through synthetic biology?

Our Solution

We want to create a bacterial platform that can report on tumour immune status in-vivo, and generate a reporter that can be easily retrieved in urine.

Project Overview

Project

Project design, vision, and implementation

Wet-Lab

Experimental design, protocols, and execution

Modelling

Mathematical models to predict biosensor output

Software

Simulations of the tumour microenvironment

Human Practices

Advice from cancer immunologists and clinicians

Public Engagement

Collaboration, education, and outreach efforts

[1] Vogenberg FR, Barash CI, Pursel M. (2010). Personalized Medicine. P&T, 35(10), 560-576.

[2] Sharma, P. et al. (2017). Primary, adaptive, and acquired resistance to cancer immunotherapy. Cell, 168(4), 707–723. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.01.017

[3] Bonaventura, P. et al. (2019). Cold tumors: A therapeutic challenge for immunotherapy. Frontiers in Immunology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2019.00168

[4] Ilié, M., & Hofman, P. (2016). Pros: Can tissue biopsy be replaced by liquid biopsy?. Translational lung cancer research, 5(4), 420–423.

[5] Trebeschi, S. et al. (2019). Predicting response to cancer immunotherapy using noninvasive radiomic biomarkers. Annals of Oncology 30(6): 998-1004. https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdz108

[6] Galli, F. et al. (2020). Relevance of immune cell and tumor microenvironment imaging in the new era of immunotherapy. Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, 39(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13046-020-01586-y

[7] Pilard, C. et al. (2021). Cancer immunotherapy: It’s time to better predict patients’ response. British Journal of Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-021-01413-x

Team:British Columbia