Agustín Correa and Matías Machado, the scientists who founded the start-up Scaffold Biotech, represented the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo at the National Tick Control and Management Update conference, which was organized by the Uruguayan Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fisheries in early August.
Scaffold Biotech is one of the start-ups in LAB+ Company Builder’s portfolio. The company’s goal is to develop innovative vaccines using cutting-edge protein engineering tools to combat ticks in cattle.
During a panel discussion at the event, Correa shared the origins of the start-up. “A few years ago, we decided to focus our research on vaccine development for the agricultural sector. There was a revolution in protein engineering thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, which allowed us to design highly effective proteins. This enables us to create the ‘ideal vaccine’: stable, very potent, and with a global impact,” he explained.
“We saw ticks as a significant issue for the country and the region, and we are convinced that a vaccine could be a valuable addition to the toolkit available to combat this pest,” he said.
Machado noted that while “there are already commercial vaccines against ticks” in other parts of the world, “the problem is that if you apply them in Uruguay, they are likely to be only marginally effective.” This is because these vaccines do not always adapt well to the specific genetic variants of ticks in different regions.
“Our approach addresses this problem in two major ways: one is the methodological innovation, using computational tools for vaccine development. The other is the type of technology we apply to the vaccine, which is novel compared to what is currently available,” Machado said.
Correa highlighted that the Scaffold Biotech product, still in development, has shown “very promising results in the field.” He also mentioned that the technology they are working on could later be applied to other diseases. “The experience we gain here will help us provide solutions to other agricultural challenges,” he emphasized.
At the beginning of 2024, LAB+ committed $750,000 in funding to support Scaffold Biotech’s ongoing research.
