On the 27th of November 2018, MycoSynVac was one of 16 successful H2020 research projects selected out of 230 EU-funded projects to be featured in the conference “EU Research and Innovation in our daily life” at the European Parliament in Brussels.
Prof. Luis Serrano had the honor of presenting the project and its current results as the very first project during the conference. The conference had bring together renowned researchers and politicians to reflect on past and present achievements of EU-funded research and innovation and to debate the challenges still ahead.
Prof. Luis Serrano gaves a very comprehensive summary of the goals and achievements of the Mycosynvac project.
“At the end of the nineteenth century life expectancy didn’t exceed 40 years old […] vaccination and antibiotics came as a revolution, increasing life expectancy up to 70 years old […] These discoveries also largely benefit the farming industry, allowing the increase of food production […] The overuse of antibiotics led to the development of massive antibiotic resistance and vaccines never succeed to produce everlasting protection […] New therapies are needed […] What was science fiction in the 70’s became reality in the last 20 years with the development of genetic engineering and synthetic biology […] Small organisms such as bacteria can now be modified and use as a vehicle to precisely deliver a treatment […] The use of pathogens to treat diseases may seem scary but it’s nothing that nature is not already doing […] There are more bacteria in our body than human cells […] if you look yourself into the mirror, think twice, because you are not looking at yourself but you are looking at bacteria […] good bacteria can be use to defend us against the bad ones […] This is the idea behind Mycosynvac: take a small bacteria that we find in the human lung, called Mycoplasma pneumoniae, remove its unnecessary components to create a chassis which can then carry the pathogenic elements of infectious bacteria and therefore act as vaccines to prevent many different livestock’s diseases […] These technologies can also be applied to treat human lung diseases (such as pneumonia, COPD or lung cancer…) which are the third cause of human death […] The project is going very well, after 3 years the vaccination technology in animal should be soon commercialized, a biotech company will be developed and research is now focused on developing human applications […] we are entering a brand new world surrounding by robot and AI but I believe that the future of therapeutic will be biorobot” said Luis Serrano.
You can see Luis Serrano´s presentation on the video section of the website or here