Diagnosing cancer as early as possible is one of the most powerful strategies of modern medicine to improve human well-being. The very weak radiation of some radioisotopes can be used to pinpoint location of cancerous cells in a patient. However, enriching such small tracers specifically to a cancer inside a patient is a major challenge of modern biomedicine. Monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs) are versatile biomolecules that can be used to target specific tumors and some major blockbuster drugs are based on mAbs. However, as mAbs require hours to days for accumulation at tumor cells in vivo, the use of mAbs for nuclear diagnostics is limited by the short half-lives of popular radioisotopes. Furthermore, mAbs are usually labeled in random positions and quantities limiting batch to batch reproducibility. This ERC POC aimed to move the step of radiolabeling from the bench to the tumor itself. Key is a platform technology that in principle enables the site-specific modification of any biomolecule with a custom designed radioisotope. Our coupling technology basically ties a backpack to any mAb of choice, which can then be packed with radioisotopes to facilitate detection or treatment of diverse cancers. In part due to the work performed as part of this POC proposal, we were able to spin off the Company Araxa Gmbh together with the Investor Xlifesciences and EMBLEM.
