Professor Tambet Teesalu joins Aqsens Health’s scientific advisors as a Senior Advisor in biosensor technology

Aqsens Health is happy to share that our scientific advisory team will be strengthened with Professor Tambet Teesalu’s phage and biosensor expertise. Professor Teesalu leads the Laboratory of Precision and Nanomedicine at the University of Tartu, Estonia, and focuses on cancer biology, nanomedicine,  tumor penetrating peptides, and in vivo phage display. We had the pleasure to interview Professor Teesalu about his academic background and his view on the importance of phages and biosensor technology in the future. 

Could you describe your background and experience in the academic world?

I am a biologist by training and have worked in fields of increasing translational relevance. During my graduate training in Tartu and Helsinki, I first worked on yeast genetics, then became interested in mouse developmental biology and processes of tissue remodeling and cell migration. After obtaining PhD in 1999, I became interested in tumor biology, diagnosis, and development of new more efficacious  cancer drugs. This interest brought me to the laboratory of Professor Erkki Ruoslahti in California where I spent productive postdoc years working on identification and preclinical development of tumor homing peptides. Together with a Japanese surgeon Kazuki N Sugahara, we discovered a new class of tumor targeting peptides, tumor penetrating peptides, and showed that these peptides can be used for efficient targeting of drugs, imaging agents and nanoparticles to the extravascular tumor tissue. It is really rewarding to see that the lead tumor penetrating peptide, iRGD (clinical lead name: LSTA1), is currently undergoing clinical testing as a booster of standard-of-care therapies of solid tumors, including hard-to-treat cancers such as pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma.  

In 2012, I established my own laboratory at the University of Tartu to continue working on development of homing peptides and precision therapeutics for solid tumors and other disease indications (infectious and inflammatory diseases, different brain diseases). In addition to my work at the University of Tartu, I hold a visiting distinguished professorship at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB). UCSB is my second alma mater – I spent there the most fruitful years of my postdoc studies and continued collaboration with outstanding researchers there such as internationally renowned expert in cationic liposome nanoparticles, Prof. Cyrus Safinya. This and other nanomedicine collaborations in Europe and the US are inspired by recognition that homing peptides are particularly useful for delivery of nanoparticle payloads.

It is important for my lab to ensure translational relevance of our research. We routinely patent our homing peptides and seek to promote collaborations with biotech or drug development companies on (pre)clinical development of the peptides. 

What led you to research phages in particular?

I became familiar with phages during my postdoc years in the US. We used peptide phage libraries for screening of the tumor homing peptides using a technique called in vivo phage display. I was fascinated by the power of this agnostic technique that allowed identification of target-specific homing systemic peptides and enabled characterization of the “vascular ZIP codes” of the normal and diseased tissues. Over the years, I have realized that homing peptide development can be streamlined and made more reliable using technologies such as high-throughput DNA sequencing, advanced proteomics (such as proximity ligation-based techniques for peptide receptor identification), and application of bioinformatics and machine learning tools. So there is a lot to do and our enthusiasm in using phages for cutting-edge research has only increased over the years.

What are some of the main things that inspire you in your research and work? 

There are two main things that keep me motivated and eager to carry on research. One is the sense of adventure and discovery of the unknown that is inherent to the in vivo phage display-based approaches. Biology is full of surprises – every homing peptide relies on a different molecular pathway and  there is a feeling of adventure in deciphering mechanistic details of the pathway. Every peptide opens a new chapter of biology that we need to learn about and this work never gets repetitive or dull. Second, there is a real possibility that the peptides that we discover today can tomorrow become clinically relevant as affinity ligands for precision delivery of drugs and imaging agents. As we have seen with iRGD peptide, this is a lengthy but highly rewarding journey. Nothing beats feeling that your work contributes to the therapy of the patients.

How do you see the role of phages in the healthcare industry in the future?

In my lab, we view phages as a highly versatile platform for homing peptide discovery. On a broader scale, in the era of increased antibiotic resistance, phages have obvious applications as antibacterial agents. And then there are innovative out-of-box phage-based conceptual applications such as development of phage based biosensors .

How do you see the potential of biosensors in relation to the future of healthcare and diagnostics?

I feel that this area holds great promise and may transform how we approach detection and diagnosis of the disease, and monitoring the therapeutic response. In this respect, potentially disruptive technologies such as development of phage-based biosensors may lead to advances to allow for much-needed improvements in sensitivity, specificity and affordability.

What do you look forward to doing together with Aqsens Health?

I look forward to applying our in vivo peptide phage toolbox (different peptide phage display systems, high-throughput DNA sequencing, bioinformatics data mining and tools for machine-learning-based predictions) for phage-based biosensor discovery. I also look forward to exploring with Aqsens team potential  exciting biosensor applications of synthetic nanoparticle platforms (e.g. silver nanoparticles, iron oxide nanoworms) available at our laboratory.

Laboratory of Precision and Nanomedicine, Institute of Biomedicine and Translational Medicine, University of Tartu.

We want to give a huge thank you to Professor Teesalu for taking the time to answer our questions. We look forward to working with you!

Read more about Professor Teesalu’s research and laboratory here.