PROVIREX is using the designer recombinase Brec1, developed by its founders, to reverse HIV infection using novel genome editing technology. Brec1 recognizes the integrated HIV DNA ‘provirus’ in the genomes of infected cells and excises it, reconnecting the cell’s DNA without introducing errors. This therapy could, for the first time, enable…
The IMAG1NE trial is designed to evaluate safety and preliminary efficacy of TK-8001. T-knife is using TK-8001 to engineer T cells of patients with solid tumours carrying the melanoma-associated antigen 1 (MAGE-A1) such that they can attack and kill the tumour cells. MAGE-A1 is an attractive therapeutic target that is highly cancer specific and…
Aignostics is a spin-off from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Berlin Institute of Health (BIH), developing novel digital pathology solutions with “Explainable AI” for pharmaceutical research and diagnostics. It announced the closing of an oversubscribed €14m Series A financing round. Wellington Partners led the round, joined by existing…
Along with previous seed investors, a group of new private investors, family offices and Ascenion participated in this round. The funding enables the company to roll-out its fully-automated ‘lab-in-a-box system’ consisting of the LabDisk-Analyzer and the PsorX-LabDisk, the first disk to go with the system, which enables the differential diagnosis…
Johanna brings over 15 years’ experience in international event management to the team. Before joining Ascenion she was with an event management agency, responsible for coordinating global scientific conferences. She holds a diploma in business management and is a certified translator.
More than 1,000 delegates from 35+ countries, such as big pharma, emerging and small biotech, diagnostics companies, pre-seed, seed and Series-A investors, as well as professionals from tech transfer, academia and research institutions will come together in November (on site) and December (online) for BioFIT, a partnering event for technology…
Our immune response operates in a state of balance between defence and tolerance. Effector T cells (Teff) are responsible for immune defence, whereas regulatory T cells (Treg) regulate immune tolerance to the body itself. An imbalance towards Teff has serious consequences: the unregulated immune response attacks the body’s own cells and can…
While successful tumor surgery can be reassuring for cancer patients, the risk of recurrence remains. This arises when individual cancer cells that migrated into adjacent tissues before surgery later develop into metastases. These cells cannot be removed surgically, but can be removed using antibodies. An antibody fragment specific for carbonic…
Bromelain is a mixture of enzymes extracted from the stem of the pineapple plant. It is highly proteolytic and has several effects, including inhibition of inflammation and coagulation. The pharma company URSAPHARM in Saarbrücken already has bromelain-based products on the market, and has been working closely with Helmholtz Institute for…
Zebrafish are vertebrates and as such surprisingly similar to mammals in terms of their genetics. Over 80 per cent of all disease-relevant human genes can be found in the zebrafish genome. Zebrafish are therefore well suited for investigating basic mechanisms of organ development. Prof. Christoph Englert and his team at the Leibniz Institute on…
What seemed a few years ago to be science fiction is now reality: cell and gene therapy play an important role in the treatment of diseases such as cancer. However, firstgeneration gene therapy approaches are based on viral gene transfer systems, which can lead to critical side effects in some cases. They are also complicated and expensive to…
Macrophages play an important role in cellular immunity, and are responsible for the destruction of pathogenic viruses and, above all, bacteria. Scientists have had the vision of producing macrophages and other therapeutically useful cells on a large scale to treat infectious diseases for over 15 years. This would allow infections to be targeted…
Pathologists and clinicians take a lot of time to thoroughly analyse complex images such as tissue sections or X-rays – and they still make mistakes. Even experienced practitioners. Two start-ups from the Charité and BIH have developed AI-based solutions for better diagnostics. Both are supported by Ascenion and the BIH DHA. Aignostics: Precision…
