Crowdfunding campaign by health sciences' students for a project on Burkitt lymphoma
A team of students from different centres, including the UAB, will be participating in the next edition of the prestigious international iGEM synthetic biology competition with a project to investigate a new possible treatment for Burkitt lymphoma. They have now began a crowdfunding campaign to reach the proof of concept development phase.
20/07/2022
Burkitt lymphoma is a highly aggressive cancer affecting white blood cells fighting infections and the central nervous system. Students from the Vesiprod team are the first from the UAB and the UB to participate in the iGEM competition, which will present the competing projects from 26 to 28 October in Paris. The team has worked during the summer researching a new potential treatment of this disease. The therapy is based on tiny particles, exosomes, which would act as RNA messengers with a specific genetic sequencing that would attack cancer cells.
The team includes the support and assessment of several lecturers, such as Mercè Martí from the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology. It will conduct research at the Josep Carreras LEUKAEMIA Research Institute, at the laboratory of Gaël Roué.
The students started a crowdfunding campaign this summer with the aim of raising 10,000 euros which they need for their research and to reach the proof of concept development phase. They are convinced that their project, based on an improved system of synthetic exosomes containing charged therapeutic agents, will not only be useful for diseases such as Burkitt lymphoma, but also for many other types of diseases.