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Analyze and build a theoretical vaccine candidate to help patients with limited treatment options and poor outcomes.
It's very beneficial for any young-career researcher to understand the whole cycle of a vaccine development. In this Build Project, you'll wear the hat of a scientist and suggest a new vaccine candidate that targets mutations in a cancer of your choice. Under the supervision of an experienced Build Fellow, you'll review existing clinical reports, decide which cancer your vaccine should target, develop a potential antigen sequence, and prepare a brief experimental plan for implementing in a biotech company. You'll become familiar with must-to-know tools like PubMed, Blast, Prism, Flowjo, and BioRender. All this will happen in an environment that simulates the operations of a real biotech team.
Get to know the Build Fellow and other students, ask questions about the project requirements, prepare your workspace.
Review different clinical data reporting cancer outcomes. In addition, you will focus on one of them and extract data from current treatments, using pubmed. Find and understand the most common techniques in immunotherapy.
Mutations and sequences, understand their nature and how important they are. Platforms to deliver a vaccine and adjuvants. Choose your target.
Develop a potential antigen sequence using GenBank/Blast software from NIH to generate the ideal candidate that will be tested.
Develop a brief protocol (experimental plan) to pre-qualify potential candidates with a realistic timeline, using BioRender.
Perform data visualization by plugging data into software tools such as statistical software GraphPad prism.
Prepare a concise, professional, scientific presentation for a biotech company environment.
Polish your project deliverables and present them to the Build Fellow and other students in the final group session.
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Get started by submitting your application.
We'll notify you when projects reopen. In the meantime, you can explore our resources and learn more about our Fellows.
Xavier is a Molecular Biology Fellow at Open Avenues Foundation, where they work with students leading projects on scientific search clinical data and fundamental principles of molecular biology in Biotech companies.
Holding a PhD in Immunology and Microbiology from Virginia Tech, Xavier has several years of experience in research and 1 year in the Biotech industry. He currently works as Scientist at Elicio Therapeutics, a company responsible for creating and designing a cancer vaccine to deliver immunotherapeutics directly to the immune system.
Outside of work, Xavier enjoys running and hiking, trying new restaurants and coffee shops around the Boston area, or traveling and visiting his family in Spain.