Challenge: Somatic mutations are de novo non-inherited mutations which can be passed down to other cells through the course of cell division. Their role has been well-established in cancer. However, the presence of somatic mutations in non-malignant disease has never been explored since it is unlikely that a single point mutation would be sufficient to cause disease.…
Challenge: The fight against cancer, infectious diseases and chronic disorders has been significantly advanced because of the development of effective immunotherapies, vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs. New pre-clinical tools to enable this new active field of drug discovery are needed further upstream in the discovery process. More functional and physiologically relevant readouts are necessary to address…
Challenge: Despite the enormous benefits that traditional vaccines have brought to human health in the last century, preventable diseases continue to claim millions of lives each year. New vaccine technologies that offer speed and versatility in production would have significant impact. The emergence of technologies based on Virus-Like Particles (VLPs) has paved the way for…
Challenge: Infection with herpes viruses is associated with several immunodeficient human diseases including the development of cancers. Patients receiving organ transplants are particularly sensitive to such infections. These patients are treated with antiviral agents; however, approved drugs are often associated with severe side effects and the development of resistance can compromise therapy. There is thus…
Challenge: Antibiotics represent some of the most important drugs available to modern medicine because they can often treat bacterial infections that would otherwise pose a serious health threat. However, there is currently a lack of new antibiotic development by the industry due to reduced economic incentives as well as challenging scientific and regulatory requirements. To…
Challenge: Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease in which the body immune system attacks its own tissues, causing inflammation and tissue damage. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the most common type. It affects 1/1000 individuals, mostly women. In healthy people, more than 50 billion cells die daily as part of a normal biological mechanism: replacing…
Challenge: Despite the availability of antibiotics, bacterial infections remain a major and growing health threat. Antibiotic resistance is a leading cause of deadly hospital-acquired infections worldwide. In 2017, the World Health Organization published a list of high-level threats bacteria for which new antibiotics are urgently needed. Among them, Staphylococcus aureus (SA) and its persistent forms,…
Challenge: Respiratory tract infections (RTI) are a leading cause of morbidity, mortality, and hospitalizations globally. Yet, many cases of RTI still go undiagnosed and RTI is often treated empirically because the etiologic agent(s) is unidentified. The current diagnostic approach is complex and often takes days to weeks. It may also fail to detect a broad…
Challenge: One of the major concerns in the development of a new compound by the chemical, pharmaceutical or cosmetic industries is to assess its ability to induce cutaneous allergic reactions. Indeed, the industry must be able to predict such risk and classify it before commercialization of new molecules. To date, these tests are performed on…
Challenge: The design of superior biologic therapeutics such as monoclonal antibodies, single-domain antibodies, and engineered proteins requires optimizing their ability to bind to disease targets. Antibodies offer many advantages over small molecules in treating diseases, but the process for generating them is complex, expensive and often requires further steps of affinity maturation to achieve the…