Invading solid tumour castles with bacterial Trojan horses, with Dr Pedro Correa de Sampaio of Neobe Therapeutics

Our immune system is like an army, constantly fighting to keep invaders at bay. When faced with solid tumours, that army is at a major disadvantage. Tumours can build walls around themselves making it hard for the immune cells to penetrate and subsequently target the cancerous cells.

Neobe Therapeutics, a spinout of Deep Science Ventures and Cancer Research UK, is looking to an old idea of using bacteria to treat solid tumours by coupling this with the precision tools of synthetic biology. Their bacteria aim to slip behind the walls of these solid tumours and, like a Trojan horse, precisely attack them from within - tearing down the walls for the army of the immune system

In this episode of BioInnovation Spotlight, we chat with Neobe founder Dr Pedro Correa de Sampaio about why he moved from academia to entrepreneurship to tackle problems in cancer treatment, and why he believes this technology could be the solution.