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Recently, the American Chemical Society
Society, ACS) C&EN website has announced a list
of startups to watch in 2022.
C&EN selected ten startups from more than 200 startups based on the science behind their core technologies and the breadth of their problem-solving
.
Today, WuXi AppTec's content team featured five of these biotechnology companies
.
Let's take a look at how these startups are using innovative chemistry for the benefit
of humanity.
.
Image source: C&EN official website
Alltrna: Using tRNA to overcome hereditary driving diseases
Alltrna: Using tRNA to overcome hereditary driving diseasestRNA is an important component of the protein synthesis mechanism in cells, which transports the corresponding amino acids into ribosomes by recognizing the coding on the mRNA to synthesize polypeptide chains
.
Many rare diseases occur due to coding errors on mRNA, resulting in erroneous termination signals
in protein synthesis.
One strategy to treat these diseases is to use mRNA or gene therapy to replace the wrong code
.
Another strategy is to replace the tRNA, allowing the tRNA to recognize premature stop codons and add the correct amino acids
.
Its advantage is that since many different diseases are due to mutations in the same type of codon, changing tRNA is expected to treat multiple diseases
with one drug.
with one drug.
Theonie
Dr.
Anastassiadis co-founded Alltrna
within Flagship to develop a tRNA technology platform.
The platform uses its proprietary experimentation and machine learning algorithms to identify and test patterns of tRNA modifications for disease treatment
.
Last November, the company announced the completion of a $50 million Series A funding round
.
Dr.
Anastassiadis said that the company's main goal is to engineer tRNAs to correct nonsense mutations that cause premature termination of protein synthesis, but the company's vision is to use different tRNAs to alter mRNA translations and modify biological processes
that are dysregulated in cancer and other inherited rare diseases.
.
The company's vision is to use different tRNAs to alter mRNA translations and modify biological processes
that are dysregulated in cancer and other inherited rare diseases.
Delix Therapeutics: Advancing the ease of use of hallucinogenic analogues to treat mental illness
Delix Therapeutics: Advancing the ease of use of hallucinogenic analogues to treat mental illnessKetamine or "K powder" is commonly used medically as an anesthetic and is a tightly controlled psychotropic drug, but scientists have found that ketamine has the potential to repair the brain's neural circuits to treat patients
with cognitive and behavioral disorders 。 However, due to side effects such as hallucinogenic, coma and high blood pressure, ketamine cannot be used as a daily prescription drug, so if it can be chemically modified, the structure that causes the side effects of the drug will be removed and the effective part will remain, which may make such molecules a psychotropic drug that can be used to treat diseases such as depression - this is Delix
David Therapeutics, co-founder and chief innovation officer
Dr.
Olson, who established his lab at the University of California, Davis, was the vision
behind Delix.
The chemical structure of small molecules is the basis for
their pharmacological effects.
Delix's proprietary discovery platform analyzes many different existing psychedelic drugs to understand the possible physiological effects of the substructure of each small molecule, and thus the structural components that should be eliminated or retained to engineer and produce innovative molecular drugs
.
These potential drugs can target receptors involved in synapses in the brain, but do not produce hallucinogenic effects
.
In order for drugs to successfully pass through the blood-brain barrier, care needs to be taken to maintain their molecular weight within
certain limits in the process of developing such drugs.
Delix has successfully screened 2 pilot projects from more than 1400 complexes, which are expected to enter clinical trials
next year.
.
Delix has successfully screened 2 pilot projects from more than 1400 complexes, which are expected to enter clinical trials
next year.
If successfully developed, Delix's drug may face less policy and regulatory resistance
than other hallucinogenic drugs.
DMC Biotechnologies: Core technologies that make living biological cells as predictable as catalysts
DMC Biotechnologies: Core technologies that make living biological cells as predictable as catalystsThe bioengineering industry uses bacteria, cells and other living organisms to manufacture various drugs and compounds required by humans, but the natural variability of these microbial lives often causes many variables in the production and manufacturing process, causing production delays and
failures.
To solve this dilemma, DMC
Biotechnologies founders Dr.
Matthew Lipscomb and Michael
Dr.
Lynch has developed a breakthrough technology that enables biomanufacturing processes to be as stable and predictable as traditional chemical reactions
.
.
This is called "dynamic metabolic.
"
Control)" technology is a two-stage process designed to separate
a cell's compound production function from the process of cell growth.
This technique uses gene silencing
silencing) and targeted protein degradation
proteolysis) technology
.
In short, this technology limits the ability of microorganisms to respond to the external environment and focuses them on the production of enzymes
that can be biotransformed efficiently.
a cell's compound production function from the process of cell growth.
This technique limits the ability of microorganisms to respond to the external environment and focuses them on the production of enzymes
that can efficiently biotransform.
Compared with traditional biological production processes, variable metabolic control has the advantages of low price and shorter production time for the
market.
In addition, this technology is also environmentally friendly
because it replaces many chemical steps in the traditional production process.
market.
DMC closed nearly $39 million in Series B funding in January, bringing its total funding to about $53 million
.
Last year, DMC announced the successful completion of commercial production of L-alanine and reached an agreement with metabolic engineering company Conagen to upgrade its fermentation plant technology
.
In addition, DMC has also developed
products such as the sweetener xylitol (xylitol) or other branched-chain amino acids.
EXO Therapeutics: Targeting distal proteases to treat disease
EXO Therapeutics: Targeting distal proteases to treat diseaseTraditional development strategies for protease inhibitors include small molecule inhibitors that bind to the active pocket of proteases, and allosteric inhibitors
that bind to the allosteric site of the protease to alter the conformation of the active pocket.
Although these strategies have produced a variety of effective approved therapies, they can target only 7%
of potential targets.
Moreover, inhibitors that bind to the active site are usually not very selective, and some active sites are difficult to bind
to the inhibitor because of the protein structure.
Inhibitors that bind to allosteric regulatory sites may inhibit the associated proteases and block the secondary activity
that you want to preserve.
EXO
Therapeutics' unique small molecule drug discovery platform, ExoSight, targets distant sites
.
They are far from the active site of the protease, but are closely related to
the binding of substrates and proteases.
This strategy holds the promise of precisely regulating the specificity of proteases to substrates and may target previously undruggable targets to identify potential "first-in-class" candidates
。 This strategy is based on the Broad Institute (Broad
Professor David Liu of the Institute of MIT and Harvard and Alan of the Salk Institute
Dr.
Saghatelian's team, a paper
published in Nature Chemical Biology in 2019.
.
They are far from the active site of the protease, but are closely related to
the binding of substrates and proteases.
This strategy holds the promise of precisely regulating the specificity of proteases to substrates and may target previously undruggable targets to identify potential "first-in-class" candidates
.
EXO closed its $78 million Series B funding round
last October.
EXO combines its platform with cryo-EM, structural biology, protein engineering, and DNA-encoded compound libraries (DEL) to discover and optimize candidate compounds
targeting distant sites.
The company has identified distal sites that can be targeted in different protease types that account for 30 percent of potential targets
.
Currently, it has 4 therapies in its pipeline, 3 for cancer and 1 for inflammatory diseases
.
.
Micropep Technologies: Uses micropeptides as biological herbicides to help grow crops
Micropep Technologies: Uses micropeptides as biological herbicides to help grow cropsMicropep
Technologies aims to reach the ceiling of the agricultural world – developing biological herbicides to selectively kill weeds
that have a significant impact on crop growth.
To achieve this goal, Micropep has developed a natural herbicide based on a micropeptide mechanism
used in weeds to control gene expression.
Micropep also raised $8.
6 million in July to advance the commercialization
of its products.
that have a significant impact on crop growth.
Micropep has developed a natural herbicide based on a micropeptide mechanism
used in weeds to control gene expression.
Micropeptides are molecules containing 10-20 amino acids that stimulate the production
of microRNAs (microRNAs) in cells.
MicroRNAs, on the other hand, can reduce or stop the production
of proteins responsible for these mRNAs by binding to messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that complement their sequences.
When the external environment is harsh, plants use micropeptides and microRNAs to reduce the expression
of specific proteins.
For example, in times of drought, plants use this mechanism to slow down their growth and at the same time release stored water to overcome water scarcity
.
Micropep hopes to use this natural mechanism to completely stop weed growth
with micropeptides.
To achieve this, Micropep's first step is to discover the target proteins in the weeds, and then use artificial intelligence to identify the microRNAs
that control these proteins.
Micropep's approach to dealing with weeds has many advantages, starting with that it is a completely new mechanism
.
Since crop companies have used only herbicides since 1980 based on an innovative mechanism, this new herbicide will potentially allow farmers to kill weeds
that have become resistant to synthetic herbicides.
In addition, as this is a biotype herbicide, the regulatory review process may be expedited
.
However, Micropep faces high production costs and the accompanying high product prices
.
Many biotypic insecticides and herbicides have shown good efficacy in the research process, but they are difficult to commercialize
due to the high production cost.
If Micropep can solve this problem, this herbicide product could have a revolutionary impact on
the agricultural world.
that are already resistant to synthetic herbicides.
As a result, the regulatory review process may be accelerated
.
In addition, there is Air on this list, which makes chemicals from electric current through hydrogenation reactions to absorb carbon dioxide
company, Phytolon, which manufactures natural colors for the food industry, and Sepion, which has improved lithium metal batteries
Technologies, Travertine, which converts mining waste and carbon dioxide into sulfuric acid and building materials
Technologies, and Zwitterco, Inc.
that uses facultative ions (zwitterion) to make anti-scaling water filters
.
We hope that these forward-thinking startups will shine in the near future and solve human social problems to improve the lives of
the masses.
