Researchers at Kyoto University’s iCeMS introduced a synthetic protein therapeutic named Crunch that reprograms the body's natural cell clearance process to target and engulf living harmful cells, including cancer and autoimmune cells. Crunch modifies Protein S by replacing its cell-death recognition domain with modules that bind specific cell-surface proteins on unwanted cells, facilitating their phagocytic elimination. Their study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering demonstrates proof-of-concept efficacy in mouse cancer models.