Verena Noderer

Antibody-based immunotherapies have great potential for the treatment of tumor diseases. However, an undesired over-stimulation of the immune system can lead to side effects that require the therapy to be discontinued. This overstimulation has two causes: First, the target antigens are often present both on the tumor tissue and on the healthy tissue. Secondly, the antibodies are active throughout the body and not only locally on the tumor. In order to solve these problems, we at Plectonic developed an "on/off button" for antibody immunotherapies. This is an ultra-miniaturized nanoswitch made of DNA. The nanoswitch can specifically recognize tumor cells and recruit the body's own immune cells to fight these cells. This enables the immune system to fight tumor cells in a targeted and "on demand" manner and leads to lower activity on healthy tissue and thus to fewer side effects. We term this new class of immunotherapeutics LOGIBODY - logic-gated antibody!