The biggest reason why 92% of new drugs fail is that drugs are currently discovered in mice, which are not realistic models of human disease but are used due to the challenges of working in humans. We've created a human ‘immune system in a dish’ to discover drugs more likely to work in patients.
Robert has a PhD in immunology and is intimately familiar with the ways in which people are failing to recognize the importance of the immune system in diseases and the failures of trying to model it adequately. Juliana has a MSc in bioengineering and for the last 5 years has been working on developing mini-organ models in an effort to more accurately model human disease.
Both of us have always recognized a gap in the pharmaceutical industry that everyone seems to acknowledge exists, but few people are working to fill, which is using humans and human systems to treat disease. Since it is not always possible to test drugs directly in patients, there is a critical need for human systems to test drugs on that will predict downstream success in the patient.
Our immune organoid is a 3D system that has all of the features of a human secondary lymphoid organ. It contains all of the cells (B cells, T cells, NK cells, etc), structures (germinal centers, LZ/DZ, etc), and function (somatic hypermutation, antibody and cellular response, etc) that you would expect to see in a secondary lymphoid organ. It matches the genetic background of the patient from which it’s derived, meaning it also models diseases that patients have. And because it exhibits the same functions as a human immune system, you can test drugs and vaccines as if you were testing them in actual patients from the start. It's also easier to work with than mice.
People are currently using our platform as a new way to produce antibody therapies, to test vaccine candidates, and to test new treatments for diseases like multiple sclerosis.