A novel, cell-penetrating, and TLR-activating peptide for pathogen and cancer vaccine development

Adjuvants are often critical for a vaccine to boost the immune response. The current adjuvant industry is fragmental and conceptually immature. A new discovery led to the development of a novel series of versatile adjuvants for enhancing the immune response to the vaccines. This is a platform technology that can be used for almost all vaccines.

Principal Investigator:
Associate Professor Lu Jinhua
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

Commercial Partner:
Konruns Pharmaceuticals

Pilot scale manufacturing of therapeutically modified mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) for cancer therapy

We have developed a game changing and cost-effective technology to effectively enhance stem cell therapy. These novel cells, acting as ‘biobots’, are manufactured in Singapore to meet the increasing demand to treat cancers and other aliments in companion animals and human both locally and abroad.

Principal Investigator:
Associate Professor Too Heng-Phon
Department of Biochemistry

Commercial Partner:
ArkBio

Dual-specific chimeric antigen receptor T cell (AND-gate CAR-T) via signal tweaking

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) cell therapy has been very successful in treatment of blood cancers but has a number of undesirable and even fatal side effects, as well as limited efficacy against solid tumours. This technology will enable the CAR-T cells to last longer and to be more specific and effective in killing tumour cells.

Principal Investigator:
Provost’s Chair Professor Nicholas R.J. Gascoigne
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine

Commercial Partner:
Milltrust International Group

CircmiRs as a miRNA interference platform

Ground-breaking FDA approvals for first-ever RNA-based drugs herald exciting times for drug development. Medicines can now be designed to treat diseases using refreshing new approaches. Our project establishes the invention of a unique circular-RNA platform to design and customise synthetic circRNA medicines. This adds an avenue for drug design that will bring new medicines closer to the clinic.

Principal Investigator:
Professor Roger Foo
Department of Medicine, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Senior Consultant, National University Heart Centre, NUH

Commercial Partner:
Start Codon

A new (heart lung machine)-cannula for cardiopulmonary bypass, featuring inflatable balloons for flow occlusion

Heart Disease in on the rise globally. During the heart surgery, heart-lung-machine with cannulas is required. The insertion of these cannulas can be cumbersome, cause trauma to the entry vessels, or clutter the operation field. Our project aims at producing novel, improved heart-lung-machine cannulas, which facilitate safer and easier operations, reduce trauma and risk, in both open-heart-, minimally invasive, as well as complex Re-do hear surgeries. The impact of such improved cannula can be substantial towards better surgeries and patient outcomes.

Principal Investigator:
Associate Professor Theodoros Kofidis
Department of Surgery, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Senior Consultant, Department of Cardiac, Thoracic & Vascular Surgery, National University Heart Centre, NUH

Commercial Partner:
Heritas Capital Management

Probiotic platforms for the development of medical foods and therapeutics

We have developed an array of probiotic platforms that can potentially function as medical foods and therapeutics for the prevention, management and treatment of human diseases and validated their key efficacies in pre-clinical studies. This study aims to advance our pre-clinically validated probiotics into medical foods for gastrointestinal disorders. The clinical and manufacturing development processes established in this study will accelerate the translation of the probiotic platforms currently in our technology pipeline.

Principal Investigator:
Associate Professor Matthew Chang
Associate Department of Biochemistry, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
Director, Wilmar-NUS Corporate Laboratory (Wil@NUS)
Director, Singapore Consortium for Synthetic Biology (SINERGY)
Director, NUS Synthetic Biology for Clinical and Technological Innovation (SynCTI)

Commercial Partner:
Heritas Capital Management