Design of growth-coupled measurements of single-chain antibody fragment function

We are building a new class of optical biosensors comprised of quantum defect-functionalized carbon nanotubes conjugated to designed phase-changing antibody fragments (scFvs) fashioned to make implantable nanosensors that detect proinflammatory cytokines such as human Interleukin-6 (hIL-6) in patients in real time. hIL-6 is a clinical biomarker for a number of important diseases, including ovarian cancer, lung cancer, and cytokine storm in sepsis, covid, and Car-T syndrome in patients undergoing cancer immunotherapy. Our first paper on this was recently published in JACS1. Increased affinity to the cytokine target will improve sensitivity and expand dynamic range in our sensor platform. In addition to hIL-6, we intend to expand on this approach to target several additional cytokines, eventually enabling the design of high-affinity scFvs to cytokine targets outside of our dataset.  With Align to Innovate we will create datasets that will enable the development of new AI approaches to predictively engineer scFvs and other loop-presenting proteins as sensing elements for a diverse set of cytokines relevant to human health.