Genocea Technology

For many pathogens, protective immunity requires the generation of a cellular immune response. One of the key components of a cellular immune response are T-lymphocytes (T-cells). T-cells can be generally classified as CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) and CD4+ Helper T-cells, that respectively, recognize and eliminate pathogen-infected host cells or produce compounds (cytokines) that stimulate other immune cells to help fight infection. To activate T-cell responses during a natural infection, invading pathogens are initially engulfed by specialized antigen-presenting cells (APC). Pathogen-derived proteins (antigens) are subsequently processed into smaller peptides and placed on the surface of the APC for recognition by CD8+ or CD4+ T-cells. Upon recognition of the presented antigenic peptide on the surface of the APC, T-cells are then activated to help eliminate the infection. Activated T-cells also divide and become long-lived memory T-cells that can rapidly respond to infection should the host contact the infectious agent again, thus providing long-term protective T-cell memory.

Effective vaccine strategies for invading pathogens often require the identification and in vivo delivery of pathogen-derived antigens to APC via immunization. While several advances have been made in antigen delivery methods, relatively few advances have been made in developing strategies to rapidly identify, out of the thousands of possible candidates for each pathogen, pathogen-specific T-cell antigens that can be incorporated into subcomponent vaccine formulations. Therefore, the development of strategies to identify pathogen-specific CD8+ and CD4+ T-cell antigens is of fundamental importance in the rational design of vaccines against numerous pathogens.

Genocea can rapidly identify the antigens that result in the in vivo stimulation of protective CD8+ and CD4+ T-cells, targets that can be immediately incorporated into existing antigen delivery systems to produce multivalent vaccine formulations that have the highest probability of generating protective cell-mediated immunity.

Genocea's technology can essentially mimic the mammalian immune system in vitro and present it with every possible antigen from a disease-causing agent.  Genocea can rapidly identify which antigens - out of the entire proteome of a disease target - will best stimulate the immune system in vivo, a task that was not only slow, but previously impossible.