Projektbeschreibung
Ein neuartiger Allergietest
Eine Allergie ist eine Reaktion unseres Immunsystems auf bestimmte Fremdkörper, die in der Regel nicht schädlich sind. Zur Diagnose werden für gewöhnlich mehrere Hautpricktests durchgeführt, durch die allgemeine Allergene identifiziert werden. Die Anzahl der Allergene, die auf einmal getestet werden können, ist jedoch beschränkt. Das EU-finanzierte Projekt AllergenDetect hat eine proprietäre Technologie entwickelt, mit der mehr als 3 000 Proteinallergene gleichzeitig getestet werden können. Zudem ist die Methode kosteneffektiv, da sie auf der rekombinanten Proteinproduktion basiert. Langfristig wird der Test von AllergenDetect die Diagnose von Allergien voraussichtlich beschleunigen und so mehreren Millionen Allergieleidenden weltweit Linderung verschaffen.
Ziel
Over the last 50 years, allergies have become a major health issue affecting approximately 20% of adults and more than 30% of children in developed countries. Allergies impair the life quality of affected individuals and diagnosis/treatment is costly for health care systems. In the EU, the avoidable indirect costs of patients insufficiently treated for allergy is estimated to range between 55 and 151 billion Euro per year. A key issue towards fighting this allergy epidemic lies in the diagnosis of allergies, which is still limited by expensive, low throughput methods allowing to test only a few dozens of allergens at once. Yet, several thousands of allergens have been reported in the literature and cost effective methods for testing hundreds or even thousands of allergens are highly sought after.
Here, we propose a novel high throughput method (AllergenDetect) enabling to test more than 3000 protein allergens in parallel within a single test, relying on our ERC-funded technology. Instead of cumbersomely purifying protein allergens from natural sources, we will apply synthetic DNA libraries to produce allergens using expression systems commonly applied in biotechnology. Our method greatly expands the throughput of allergen testing compared to state of the art methods and allows for the first time to systematically test all known protein allergens at a fraction of today’s cost and within a single assay. In the first phase, we plan to market this technology as diagnostic kits to hospitals and analytic laboratories that have the required infrastructure already in place. For patient samples from private practitioners, specialized allergists, and individuals seeking allergy testing on their own, we are planning to launch a spin-off laboratory directly performing these AllergenDetect tests.
Wissenschaftliches Gebiet
Programm/Programme
Thema/Themen
Finanzierungsplan
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantGastgebende Einrichtung
7610001 Rehovot
Israel