Introduction
In just one year, Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) cost Brazil more than $14 million[1]. Current disease prevention methods for VL have not had the expected effect, whether due to costs, implementation difficulties, parasite resistance or even population dissatisfaction with the way the strategies are applied[2]. The diagram below represents BioPank's advantages over the prevention methods currently used.
Paratransgenesis has never been applied outside academia; in other words, there is no product on the market that utilizes this technique. Because of that, it was a challenge for us to know how we would implement our project in real life. To help us with this challenge, we had help from three experts who gave us insights and tips on how to make BioPank a product that can be marketed in real life.
Professor Marcelo Ramalho-Ortigão, an expert in paratransgenesis, suggested using sugar baits to disperse our bacteria in the environment. Professor Margareth Capurro is one of the biggest names concerning transgenic mosquitoes in Brazil and told us about who could be our likely end users and the bureaucratic obstacles that we would have to surpass for the regulation of our product. Dr. Mona Oliveira has a synthetic biology startup, "BioLinker". She told us in detail about the process of creating a startup and the means to raise public and private funding for science-related companies.
Marcelo Ramalho-Ortigão
Professor Marcelo Ramalho-Ortigão holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology of leishmaniasis vectors. He is one of the authors of the book chapter[3] that served as one of the bases of our project. In one of several conversations we had, we asked him how to implement paratransgenesis in the real world, especially regarding the spread of bacteria on sandflies. As paratransgenesis is a new technique, there is still no gold standard on how to distribute the transformed bacteria to vectors. Still, Professor Marcelo suggested that we studied the sugar baits approach. He pointed to an article that used attractive sugar baits impregnated with leishmanicidal toxins as a strategy to control sandflies[4] and said we could use our engineered bacteria instead of the toxin. We really liked the idea and researched more about sugar baits to find out how we could get the best use of them. We found that we need to know the breeding sites of L. longipalpis, as females only feed on blood when laying eggs. Through the article More than the eyes can see: The worrying scenario of canine leishmaniasis in the Brazilian side of the triple border, we discovered the places with the highest incidence of the disease in our city. Also, we adapted our chassis to withstand the environmental variations that can happen in the sugar baits.
Margareth Capurro
Professor Margareth Capurro-Guimarães is a specialist in transgenic mosquitoes, led the project that carried out tests with transgenic Aedes aegypti in Brazil and has contact with companies in this field.
We asked Professor Margareth who would buy a product based on paratransgenesis. She thinks it is challenging to sell this type of solution to public agencies, as there is lots of bureaucracy involved. An alternative she indicated is the sale to residential condominiums, as the area of operation would be well defined, and the people who live there could join together to pay for the product.
Dr. Capurro also warned us about the safety aspects of our project we need to consider: First, we have to make sure our bacteria doesn't do any harm to other insects, especially bees. Second, she suggested that we have a physical barrier to prevent other insects from accessing our sugar bait, such as a specifically sized sandflies net. Last but not least, she said that the Brazilian regulatory agency that manages the release of GMOs is very demanding. Therefore, we would have to have robust safety strategies and be prepared to answer all kinds of questions.
Mona Oliveira
Dr. Mona Oliveira is the founder of the Brazilian synthetic biology startup "BioLinker". In our conversation with her, we asked what the challenges of having a synthetic biology company in Brazil are and what kind of clients we should focus on.
Mona told us that several public notices financially help startups at various stages, but we need to have a well-designed strategy to get this help.
Mona also guided us on the choice of our customers. For her, we must try to sell our product to both the private sector and the government so that we are not dependent on just one group. She suggested marketing the benefits of our product to the population so that citizens could put pressure on public authorities to buy it.
Conclusion
We can conclude that, in the case of sandflies, the most feasible technique to spread the engineered bacteria to them is through sugar baits.
Our strategy would be more advantageous to be sold as a service rather than a product, as well as in transgenic mosquito companies. Therefore, our end users would be company employees trained in the management of our product. Our consumers can be citizens who want to alleviate the problem of leishmaniasis in their residential condominiums or governments interested in putting an end to this public health issue. For the field application of our product, it would be necessary to study the breeding sites of sandflies to know the best areas to place the sugar baits.
The main safety aspects that need to be considered are: devising a robust strategy not to affect animals other than sandfly, as we did in our detection and killswitch modules, and designing our sugar bait to have a physical barrier against the entry of other insects.