I‑FNT develops affordable immunotherapies using its proprietary GRAS Micro‑Organism Surface‑Display Technique (GOST) to express target antigens on food‑grade Lactobacillus strains, enabling low‑cost oral or injectable vaccines without viral vectors. The platform, combined with STOM‑IC microbial isolation, supports a pipeline of candidates for chronic kidney disease, sarcopenia, type‑2 diabetes, COVID‑19, cancer cachexia, and animal health applications.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
Current therapeutic development for chronic diseases, metabolic disorders, and infectious or oncologic conditions relies on complex biologics that are costly to produce, require cold-chain logistics, and often involve safety concerns associated with viral vectors or synthetic peptides. Additionally, a large proportion of environmental microbes remain unculturable, limiting discovery of novel bioactive strains for animal health applications.
Solution
I‑FNT leverages its proprietary GRAS Micro‑Organism Surface‑Display Technique (GOST) to engineer safe, food‑grade lactic acid bacteria that present target antigens or therapeutic proteins on their cell surface, enabling low‑cost, orally deliverable or injectable immunotherapies. The platform combines GOST with the STOM‑IC method, which isolates and cultivates previously unculturable microbes by co‑culturing them with helper isolates in customized media, expanding the pool of candidate strains for both human and veterinary products. Using these technologies, I‑FNT is developing a pipeline of immune‑modulating candidates (e.g., myostatin, GDF‑15, SARS‑CoV‑2 spike, B7‑H3, B7‑H1) for indications such as chronic kidney disease, sarcopenia, muscular dystrophy, type‑2 diabetes, COVID‑19 prevention, cancer cachexia, and animal growth promotion. The approach yields high‑density bacterial cultures, rapid antigen expression, and a simplified manufacturing process that eliminates the need for viral vectors or recombinant protein purification.
Target Audience
Primary customers are pharmaceutical and biotech companies seeking affordable immunotherapy platforms for chronic, metabolic, infectious, and oncologic diseases, as well as animal health firms developing growth‑promoting or cancer‑treatment vaccines for livestock and companion animals.
Features
- GOST platform expresses chimeric antigen proteins on the surface of GRAS‑approved Lactobacillus strains using a native lipoprotein anchor (PrsA) for stable display.
- Modular vector system (pAMß backbone with strong promoters) allows rapid swapping of antigen genes, supporting fast response to emerging pathogens.
- STOM‑IC technology isolates and cultivates up to 98 % of previously “viable but non‑culturable” microbes by combinatorial media, temperature, and oxygen conditions, expanding the bio‑resource library.
- Production uses standard bacterial fermentation, enabling low‑cost, scalable manufacturing without cold‑chain requirements.
- Candidates can be formulated as inactivated whole‑cell vaccines or injectable bacterial lysates, providing flexibility for oral or parenteral delivery.
- Integrated preclinical pipeline includes human indications (CKD‑related muscle loss, sarcopenia, muscular dystrophy, type‑2 diabetes, COVID‑19, cancer cachexia) and veterinary products (MyoLac II for livestock growth, pet cancer immunotherapies).