Use of computational models designed to mimic neuronal behaviour

CyGenica uses a non-viral, non-toxic platform to develop in vitro and in vivo delivery solutions for drugs, gene editing components, and antibiotics. CyGenica, focuses on simplifying the patient experience and enhancing their quality of life by enabling safe, targeted, and affordable intracellular delivery of therapeutics. The solution is a non-toxic proprietary engineered negatively charged molecule that works just like a molecular drill. It bores through the cell membrane to deliver molecular cargoes to the nucleus without causing any harm to the cell, thus solving the most crucial issue of targeted intracellular delivery, particularly for targeted Cancer therapy.

It is well-recognized that several cancer therapies can cause alterations to neurocognitive functions. Drug-induced neurotoxicity also has the potential to trigger neurodegeneration and damage to healthy neuronal tissue. With that in mind, it is important to investigate ways to tailor cancer treatments based on their effects in the human nervous system.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a positive correlation between the severity of the pathology and the aggressiveness of the drug used to fight said pathology in the human body which invariably have a significant negative impact on overall quality of life. The importance of personalizing cancer treatment taking into consideration each of the patient’s needs can greatly improve their lifestyle while coping with the disease.

Working with CyGenica, Walton Institute intend to use computational models designed to mimic the neuronal behaviour as accurately as possible when compared to experiments in vitro and in vivo. In addition, information regarding intra- and extra-cellular mechanisms are derived from experiments with neurons in vitro. The idea was to use as much information as we could yield from our simulations to understand how cancer therapeutics can affect the central (CNS) and/or the peripheral nervous systems (PNS).