Technology Offerings

Endostatin is an antiangiogenic protein first discovered in Folkman's laboratory at Childrens Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Boston. The antitumor properties of this protein are well established. Nowever, the amount of protein required for injection in patients was beyond production feasibility due to the poor pharmacokinetics of endostatin monomer. We have shown that the problem of poor pharmacokinetics can be solved by using the Fc domain of IgG being conjugated to endostatin, a component of all monoclonal antibodies approved for patients with a number of diseases including cancer. As a result of employing Fc-endostatin, the half-life in mice was increased to 2 weeks instead of 2 hours for endostatin alone, consistent with pharmacokinetics of monoclonal antibodies.

Efficient treatment strategy based on antigen-armed antibodies (AgAbs). After AgAb treatment Epstein-Barr virus-transformed B cell lines and various Burkitt’s lymphoma cell lines were able to present antigens that efficiently induce T cell activation.

Synchronization and control of linear accelerator, multi-leaf collimator, gantry system, patient support system and x-ray beam generation system at the same time is difficult to establish, particularly with hard real-time requirements. The presented technology comprises a control unit consisting of standardized programmable logic controllers for real-time operation of all subsystems of a radiation therapy device. Thus, the technology allows precise and dynamic patient treatment with high time resolution.

Several limitations restrict conventional Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) application. Examples are: 1) Low temporal resolution, which prohibits measurements of faster processes 2) FRAP evaluation schemes cannot include spatial constraints imposed by the cellular environment on protein mobility 3) FRAP ignores the sequential nature of the bleaching and image acquisition process. In order to overcome these limitations of conventional FRAP DKFZ researchers developed a novel FRAP based method called 3PEA (Pixel-wise Photobleaching Profile Evolution Analysis). The advantages of 3PEA are e.g.: accurate mobility measurements of fast, slow, and immobile proteins and fast determination of effective diffusion coefficients. The presented technology is thought to be suitable for use in all confocal laser scanning microscopes (no additional hardware is needed) and would allow automated high throughput FRAP experiments.

Virus-like particles (VLPs) of EBV, completely devoid of viral DNA, for the prevention of infectious mononucleosis (IM) and EBV-associated diseases like lymphomas often developed in patients with immunosuppression.

In 50-80% OPSCC patients human papilloma virus (HPV) can be detected. These patients have an improved survival and would benefit from deescalate cancer treatment. The technology provides a reliable marker based on RNA pattern.