Meet The Company Reprogramming The Future Of Synthetic Biology – Forbes

From Left: bit.bio Co-founder and CFO Florian Schuster, investor and Lyell founder, Rick Klausner, ... [+] and bit.bio founder and CEO, Mark Kotter

The first two decades of synthetic biology were ruled by microbes. Microorganisms have been engineered to make critical materials such as chemicals, fuels, plastics, and therapeutics. They have also provided some rudimentary control tools for turning genes on and off. But now a revolution is on the horizon in the burgeoning new field of mammalian cell engineering.

In mammalian cells, the combination of genetic switches that turn on and off different genes creates their structural and biochemical complexity. Until recently, the extreme difficulty of engineering multicellular systems has limited synthetic biology innovation. Now, bit.bio, a synthetic biology company based in Cambridge, England, is radically reimagining what is possible with the engineering of mammalian cells.

The companys opti-ox platform is a system for turning on and off specific switches to activate genes, called transcription factors. The opti-ox platform allows for precise reprogramming of cells. For example, the company can take stem cells and give them a new identity by using opti-ox, so they become specialized liver cells. The new technology is capable of making every cell in the human body at scale.

One of the dreams of synthetic biology is to have industrial-scale cell manufacturing. Through the power of machine learning, it is possible to rapidly iterate systems for mammalian cells. bit.bios technology has the potential to dramatically lower the cost of manufacturing cells while creating new cell therapies.

This technology would be an enormous boost for personalized medicine, such as having engineered immune cells to fight cancer. Another area that would benefit is the growing field of cell-based meat, which is worth $20 billion dollars. opti-ox allows you to turn on and off different genes to produce the perfect steak or the perfect fish.

Bit.bio is combining biology with data science to code cells and make biomanufacturing a real possibility. By combining the power of synthetic biology with stem cells, the company can create new cell therapies and provide human cells for research, drug discovery, and manufacturing.

Validation From Top Investors

In June 2020, bit.bio announced it secured $41.5 million of funding from top investors, including Rick Klausner, Bob Nelsen, and Jim Tananbaum. Klausner discovered how T cells are activated, which lead to the development of CAR-T cancer therapy. His endorsement of bit.bio and opti-ox is a signal of the technology's viability and its true potential.

"In November 2019, Mark showed up at Lyell and started showing me his beautiful data," says Rick Klausner, founder and executive chairman of Lyell Immunopharma. "I walked out and told my assistant to cancel the morning. It only took four hours for us to decide to write him a check."

Klausner was impressed by the opti-ox platform, which allows for the precise engineering of human cells by reliably activating specific transcription factors within these cells. By controlling transcription, bit.bio can make consistent batches of cells with high purity in days instead of months.

New Technology Could Make Moonshots Possible

Researchers engineer mammalian cells through bit.bios technology, opti-ox.

The potential of biomanufacturing cells is enormous. From creating cell therapies for cancer treatment to selling cell-based meats, there are many possibilities. If you can industrialize the production of cells, other applications can include replacing traditional blood banking and making blood products, such as platelets.

"By converting current cell therapies, which at the moment cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, to a model of biologics or perhaps even a small molecule in the future, cell therapies could become common and widespread," says founder and CEO of bit.bio, Mark Kotter.

Mass production could make cell therapies as common as drugs used in clinical practice today. The ability to industrialize the production of differentiated mammalian cells could create a new era of regenerative medicine and provide new tools for research.

"The major differentiator between cells and other compounds is that they are active. So these are intelligent systems that can interact with their environment. And I think that is their superpower," says Kotter.

Kotter is also the co-founder of Meatable, a cell-based meat company that wants to change how the world gets its protein. Although the demand for protein continues to grow, it comes with ethical and environmental concerns. Considering the tremendous impact of biodiversity destruction and global warming, it is easy to see that we will never have enough land and water to meet the entire world's demand for animal agriculture. The ability to direct a cells identity could dramatically accelerate the timeline for bringing sustainable cell-culture meats to consumers.

"The only way to reclaim the land for biodiversity is to give up current farming, and find new ways to make protein," says Kotter. Meatable's cell-based meats start with a sample from an unharmed cow or pig. Then, the company can grow cells that resemble normal animal muscles and fat. The advantage of this approach is that it does not harm the animal but still tastes like real meat.

Cell-based meat, cell-based therapies, the end of blood banks, all of these aspirations could become possible through the industrial-scale production of cells. Instead of traditional cell production methods that rely on cells receiving external cues and moving from stage to stage, synthetic biology gives us control over cell functions. Once synthetic biology can direct cells to change identity, the possibilities could be only limited by our imagination.

Thank you to Lana Bandoim for additional research and reporting in this article. Im the founder of SynBioBeta, and some of the companies that I write about are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.

Looking to learn more about the future of healthcare? Be sure to join SynBioBetas upcoming Biopharma Event!

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Meet The Company Reprogramming The Future Of Synthetic Biology - Forbes