The inspiration came from a hospital internship. It was our first time entering a real oncology ward--witnessing cancer firsthand and feeling the profound sense of helplessness in treatment.
The inspiration came from a hospital internship. It was our first time entering a real oncology ward--witnessing cancer firsthand and feeling the profound sense of helplessness in treatment.
One patient, under 30 and with liver metastases, had received immune checkpoint inhibitors--but without success. This failure prompted us to question the limitations of immunotherapy.
A doctor remarked, "These tumors have learned how to block T cells." Cancer cells ignored the death signals. This sparked our question: Can we intervene upstream in immune activation?
We focused on a key metabolite: Kynurenine (KYN), secreted by tumors via the IDO pathway. KYN suppresses T cell activity and plays a major role in immune silencing.
We engineered a BL21 (DE3)-based bacterial system with the lactate-responsive promoter ALPaGA to express KYNase only in the tumor microenvironment, coupled with multi-layered suicide safeguards.
That patient's gaze reminded us: science is not just a tool--it's a counterattack against helplessness. KINETiC is our response to that challenge through synthetic biology.
