Cancer kills over 8 million people every year. That's the entire population of Switzerland!
We need more specific therapies because current approaches result in many side-effects. That's why we invented CATE, the first all-in-one
living cancer therapeutic with an integrated two-step safety mechanism. That's why we created CATE: Cancer-Targeting E. coli.
CATE is administered intravenously, travels through the blood and colonizes tumors. If enough bacteria have gathered at the tumor, they make themselves visible and prepare a
payload. A doctor can then control the site with an MRI and activate release of the cancer-killing payload.
To achieve all these novel functions, we designed a genetic circuit that is distributed over two de novo synthesized DNA molecules. All functions were tested and optimized to make the resulting circuit as safe and well characterized as possible.