Congrats to Sensei Bio on their $28M Series AA financing with the Cambrian Bio investors, including Future Ventures.
Sensei reengineers the common bacteriophage (the cool one that looks like an alien lunar lander) to expose the unique antigen signatures of tough human cancers. The viral capsid is both a cheaply-manufactured nanoparticle and a natural adjuvant for a complete, effective and safe vaccine (the phage cannot infect human cells and are inactivated). They are currently in Phase 2 clinical trials for Head and Neck Cancer and have shown broader applicability for infectious diseases.
Phage are incredible workhorses in the natural world, killing half of all bacteria on Earth every 48 hours. Their replication cycle in bacteria affords rapid and inexpensive mass manufacturing.
Company: senseibio.com
Today’s news.
And from a separate U.S. gov’t paper: “Phages offer many unique features useful when aiming to develop a robust inflammatory immune response targeted at viral infection or cancer. Phage‐based vaccines, like other nanotechnologies, aim to present antigen to the immune system while simultaneously activating stimulatory pathways. Phages specifically have been used in a wide array of applications ranging from biosensors to cancer immunotherapies. Reasons for this diversity include the ability to produce a large number of viral particles in a rapid and cost‐effective manner, advantageous sizes and aspect ratios, the ability to display proteins and peptides in highly‐ordered arrays, and phage safety profile in humans.
Of specific interest to vaccines and immunotherapies, phages have demonstrated an ability to activate both the innate and adaptive immune systems. The combination of both the innate and adaptive immune pathways is crucial in generating robust and long‐lasting antigen‐specific responses.”
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