Technology
Our SERA Technology
Serimmune’s Serum Epitope Repertoire Analysis (SERA) technology platform applies bacterial display peptide libraries, next generation sequencing, machine learning and custom bioinformatics to reveal the many diverse antigens stimulating immunity. Through this, we gain a broad view of an individual’s environmental exposures and the unique immune responses to these exposures in disease and health.
We have biobanked serum samples and analyzed the immune repertoires of thousands of individuals. With this information, we are compiling a vast database that provides new insights into human health.
Antibody Capture & Epitope Sequencing
A 30 microliter serum sample (roughly the size of a water droplet) is screened against the SERA bacterial peptide display library containing 1010 unique peptide sequences. Plasmid DNA encoding the displayed peptide sequences is then isolated from the antibody-bound bacteria and sequenced to reveal the antibody-bound peptides. Those sequences are added to our database, which includes samples from healthy individuals, as well as those with confirmed cases of cancers, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions.
Bioinformatics
Peptide sequences are analyzed with data mining algorithms that leverage cloud computing and advanced machine learning. The computational foundation of our SERA platform enables us to work at the highest resolution to pinpoint disease-specific motifs and epitopes, as opposed to only identifying the antigens. This is important in understanding what factors in disease elicit an immune response.
Database Mining and Immune Insight Discovery
Our SERA platform uncovers the spectrum of antigen epitopes recognized by each antibody repertoire and matches those epitopes to antigens and organisms through our expanding human immunity map. As our database grows with each new cohort of samples, so does our overall immune intelligence. Archived datasets can be reanalyzed each time new associations between epitopes and disease are made. This may help identify individuals who share a common disease signature in their immune profile.