254 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B in 2022
1.2 million new infections each year
1.1 million deaths in 2022, mostly due to cirrhosis and liver
cancer
Every year, hepatitis B silently kills over a million people — one
life
every 30 seconds.
starting from 2025 iGEM cycle
Hepatitis B
doesn’t only
take lives —
it changes
them.
Beyond the physical toll,
people living with HBV
often face shame,
anxiety, and fear. Stigma
drives them away from
their communities, breaks
relationships, and keeps
them from seeking care.
We are not only fighting a virus, we are fighting the barriers it builds around people's lives. Learn how we're breaking the cycle.
In 1969, Dr. Baruch Blumberg developed the first vaccine against hepatitis B — a discovery that won him the Nobel Prize and has since saved millions of lives.
A vaccine exists and it works. But what about the 254 million people already living with chronic hepatitis B?
Current treatments can control the virus, but they don’t cure it. The reason? A molecular structure called cccDNA — a tiny circle of viral DNA that hides deep inside liver cells.
cccDNA is extraordinarily stable: it can remain in the nucleus for years and is not eliminated by immune responses or current therapies. This is what makes HBV a chronic and difficult-to-cure infection.
We’ve engineered a system to change that
We have designed a dual-CRISPR system that targets cccDNA.
By using two engineered guide RNAs that pair through a kissing loop,
we bring two dCas proteins to key regulatory regions.
These RNA–RNA interactions greatly increase the chance that both proteins bind exactly where needed, enabling safer editing of infected cells.
This way, we block viral gene expression and replication without cutting DNA, so the host genome remains unharmed.
Learn more about our solution
