BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

"And" not "or" in psoriasis

Cytokine converter cells use Boolean logic to detect and treat psoriasis

January 14, 2016 8:00 AM UTC

Diseases with dynamic, irregular flare-ups like psoriasis may now have a therapeutic platform that can automatically keep up. A Swiss group has designed implantable cells that can detect and treat psoriatic inflammation using cytokine-based Boolean "logic gates," and is looking for partners to take them to the clinic.

In a study published in Science Translational Medicine last month, Martin Fussenegger and colleagues described how logical computations could be used to produce "cytokine converter cells" capable of transducing an inflammatory input into a therapeutic output. Fussenegger is a professor of biotechnology and bioengineering at ETH Zurich...