Affilin® conjugates as targeted therapeutics greatly increase the range of therapeutic options available for Affilin® molecules. The ability to label or fuse biologically active proteins to the target binding Affilin® molecules enables Scil Proteins to introduce new mechanisms of action.
Radio-labeled antibodies are used as diagnostic tools as well as therapeutics. Affilin® molecules can be easily modified and are suitable to label tumor cells for diagnostic purposes or to kill tumor cells specifically by irradiation.
Another product option is the genetic fusion to a biologically active toxin. There is a high unmet need for those new techniques. An Affilin® conjugate toxin would consist out of a cancer specific Affilin® fused to a highly effective toxin. This leads to the selective destruction of tumor cells. In order to reduce toxic side effects in non-tumor cells the Affilin® conjugate toxin makes use of the endogenous Ubiquitin system. In normal cells the the toxin is rapidly destroyed via the Ubiquitin-mediated proteasome pathway.
The combination of toxin-targeting in tumor cells and the inactivation of the toxin in non-tumor cells by the Ubiquitin system is unique to the Affilin® technology and cannot be adopted by any other scaffold approach.
A further Affilin® conjugate approach is the genetic fusion with an effector molecule, such as a cytokine. This kind of fusion protein is able to specifically target cells or structures and provoke a significant therapeutic effect. It has been shown that within an Affilin® cytokine fusion molecule the cytokine retains its full activity in in vitro experiments.
