Descripción del proyecto
Una plataforma innovadora simplifica la forma en que las gallinas nos ayudan a luchar contra las enfermedades
Las inmunoglobulinas (o anticuerpos) son moléculas producidas por nuestros glóbulos blancos y que reconocen a los «invasores» y ayudan a su destrucción. Los humanos producen cinco clases distintas, una de las cuales presenta un funcionamiento similar a la IgY, un anticuerpo poco común producido por las gallinas. La IgY circulante se acumula en la yema de los huevos de las gallinas. Esto resulta útil porque los científicos pueden inmunizar a las gallinas frente a una variedad de patógenos, incluidos aquellos que infectan a los humanos, y a continuación purificar los anticuerpos IgY de la yema del huevo, sin tener que recurrir a la compleja producción de anticuerpos monoclonales derivados de humanos. Ahora, el proyecto financiado con fondos europeos PureIgY está desarrollando un método más sencillo y barato para aislar IgY que también potenciará significativamente la producción. El equipo se centra en utilizar la innovadora plataforma para desarrollar rápidamente terapias contra los patógenos resistentes a los agentes antimicrobianos.
Objetivo
The increased occurrence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens is a critical concern corresponding to economic and societal challenges of high priority. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is responsible for 33,000 deaths per year, while bringing €1.5 billion per year in healthcare costs and productivity losses to the EU. Current solutions (biopharmaceuticals) are highly expensive and very few tackle the AMR scenario. Therefore, new approaches to tackling AMR focusing on low cost and relatively low time-to-market therapeutics must be pursued. Immunoglobulin Y (IgY) present in hen’s egg yolk is a potential alternative to the previously described biotherapeutics, and can be obtained in higher amounts from a renewable and non-invasive matrix. However, given the complex nature of egg yolk, the current purification technologies are multi-step and mainly based on chromatography, being highly expensive and leading to low yields. In the ERC Starting Grant (IgYPurTech) I proposed the use of aqueous biphasic systems (ABS) as IgY separation/purification platforms (from commercial and non-hyperimmune eggs since no therapeutic action was defined in the proposal). Although promising results have been obtained with ABS, during the IgYPurTech framework an additional and more cost-effective process to purify IgY was developed. It is not based on the selective extraction of antibodies for one of the phases in ABS, but on two steps of induced precipitation with appropriate salts and biopolymers. This innovative purification platform enables to produce high-quality IgY in higher amounts and at a significantly lower cost than other currently commercialized biotherapeutics. In this PoC Action – PureIgY – it is aimed to scale-up the developed purification technology, to address the biological features of specific IgY to tackle the AMR critical scenario, to work on the business plan development and business development, and to create an early-stage drug development start-up.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantInstitución de acogida
3810-193 Aveiro
Portugal