Promotion Video

Highlights of our PV

Step into the Wonderful World of DR.sTraTeGY 🌿

In our promotion video, we've brought synthetic biology to life with an Animal Crossing-inspired adventure! Explore a vibrant island and meet its adorable animated villagers.

Severe Status Quo

The overuse of antifungal agents is driving resistance, a crisis exacerbated by global warming, which enables once-harmless environmental fungi to infect people. A drug-resistant Candida auris infection is spreading through the island's villages, leaving doctors with few options.

severe status quo 1

Candida auris on the island is not the only case. An increasing number of clinical infections are surging, resisting common antifungals like azoles, echinocandins, 5-FC, allylamines, and even polyenes.

severe status quo 2

Whole-genome sequencing struggles to pinpoint key resistance mutations, restricting the efficiency of lineage tracing, which severely hinders effective treatment. Tragically, Sasha's strain was pan-resistant. No potent drugs were available.

severe status quo 3

Our Solution

Driven to locate major mutations, we developed DR.sTraTeGY. We design a multicellular yeast system capable of recording mutational history and indicating mutation sites, aiming to integrate synthetic biology with medical research to provide a more convenient platform for antifungal drug development.

our solution

Multicellular Yeast

By knocking out Ace2 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we hindered the separation of mother and daughter cell walls and obtained grape-like multicellular clusters, which we call these 'grape yeasts.'

grape yeasts

Enable differentiation

To explore their differentiation potential, we introduced IME1 to induce meiosis or BAX to trigger apoptosis, yielding diverse morphologies in grape yeasts.

differentiated yeasts

TU Timer

Using this heterogeneous multicellular system, we are able to track evolutionary trajectories with our Timer module, while tracer probes integrated in different chromosomes detect mutations under intensifying selective pressure.

timer driven by ASH1 promoter

Leveraging synthetic biology and visualization, we experimentally reconstruct fungal resistance evolution to enable precise mutation mapping and assist rational drug design.

This foundamental advance enables the rational design of effective drugs, offering hope for countless affected villagers and a new path to treatment for all.

foundamental advance