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The Company evolved from experiments carried out by Dr Sutherland Maciver which demonstrated that certain strains of Amoeba had unique binding regions enabling them to recognise and bind tightly to specific types of bacteria. Dr Maciver recognised that this discovery offered a new method of targeting and destroying bacteria that cause disease.
The particular protein within the Amoeba that binds to a specific bacteria was isolated and used to identify the gene responsible for the protein’s production. This gene was then modified by fusing it to part of a gene responsible for the production of human antibodies and a new binding protein was produced using recombinant DNA technology.
This fused gene was then inserted into a yeast cell where the novel fusion protein can be produced in large quantities.
The resultant protein is then capable of promoting the destruction of an infecting bacteria. The binding region binds to the target bacteria whilst the presence of the human antibody fragment then marks the bound bacteria as a foreign body, and targets the human immune system to the bacteria, thereby killing the bacteria. The product therefore works as an immunomodulator, rather than a conventional antibiotic. This is expected to confer advantages in terms of limiting the potential for the appearance of bacterial resistance. |
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