Our technology
Nexpep has taken a novel approach to developing a treatment for coeliac disease by combining pharmacogenomics, clinical gluten challenge in patients and molecular mapping.
When patients with the HLA-DQ2 gene - approximately 90% of people with coeliac disease (ref. 8) - undergo a “gluten challenge” by eating gluten in wheat, rye, or barley for three days, T cells which damage the small intestine appear briefly in blood. (ref. 9, 10). These T cells can be monitored and analysed to define which part of gluten they recognize.
This novel approach has lead to the creation of a gluten T-cell road map pinpointing the sequences recognized by T cells in patients with coeliac disease. We now know that the vast majority of T cells involved in coeliac disease react to a few short fragments (peptides) of gluten that remain after its digestion in the gut.
This knowledge provided the foundation for the rational design of Nexvax2.