Home Team Team Attributions Collaborations Project Description Design Proof of concept Engineering Results Notebook Implementation Contribution Experiments Parts Safety Human Human Practices Communication Partnership Jamboree Organization Awards Education Model Sustainable Sustainable Sustainable The ability of antibodies to bind to molecules called antigens with high specificity and affinity turns them into a perfect tool to be used in a wide range of applications, such as diagnosis, research, and therapy. This remarkable potential of antibodies mean that today much research is being done on their study and production. However, the current antibody production has both ethical and economic limitations. This manufacturing procedure requires developing hybridomas, very tedious, expensive, and time-consuming process; and above all, it requires using animals. Figure 1. Hybridoma development based on polyethyleneglycol (PEG). Our project aims to palliate those obstacles and reduce the use of animals by creating a library in E. coli of artificially developed nanobodies by random in vitro recombination of the different CDR genetic sequences, mimicking what happens in vivo, without the need for animal experimentation. Figura 2. Project approach, CDR recombination in vitro. The concern about animal testing and research has been growing rapidly among the population in recent years which has increased the demand for alternatives to animal experimentation, however in 2017, 9.388.162 animals were used for research and testing (3). In order to gain valuable knowledge about this topic, we had an outreach talk with Dr. Rosa Monge, founder of the company BEOnChip, a company whose work is based on the use organ on chip technology to replace animal experimentation. She advised us about the current situation in animal research in Europe, which follows a clear line towards reducing its use; in fact, since 2013, animal testing for cosmetic purposes is banned (1), and countries like the Netherlands have said that they will also end animal experimentation for the development of drugs by 2026. Taking all this into account, our project agrees and fits with these objectives, and is heading towards a more ethical future. Besides avoiding the use of animals, the nanobodies expression system that we have chosen would reduce production time and cost since they can be tested on the surface of the bacteria. The non-need for the use of animals as well as the expression in bacteria save materials and money. This will make the production of nanobodies cheaper and more accessible, allowing these diagnostic and treatment methods based on nanobodies to reach the whole population, reducing inequalities between countries. Furthermore, our approach supposes a rapid strategy for developing new methods of diagnosis and treatment of the diseases that currently concern the most, such as COVID-19. Figure 3. Goals 3 and 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2). References Ban on animal testing - Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs - European Commission [Internet]. Europa.eu. 2016 [cited 2021 Oct 19]. Available from: https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/cosmetics/animal-testing_en Objetivos y metas de desarrollo sostenible [Internet]. www.un.org. [cited 2021 Oct 19]. Available from: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/es/sustainable-development-goals/
