Hi ,

• This company is using Generative AI to design new antibodies: You’ve seen it used for images like DALL-E, you’ve seen it with text like ChatGPT. Did you know you can use Generative AI to design proteins, too? Absci announced this week that they are using their AI-powered platform to design de novo antibody-based therapeutics.

Absci laboratory.

• Calling all students, postdocs, academics and start-ups. We’re excited to announce our Digital Poster Session submission process is now open! This is a great opportunity to share your work with the global community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors in synthetic biology. If you are interested in presenting your work at SynBioBeta 2023: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference, May 23-25, in Oakland, CA, please fill out this form by February 1st.
• Visolis has raised $8 million to make carbon-negative materials: The Berkeley-based startup just closed a seed funding round led by BlueYard Capital, bringing total funding to date to $8 million. The company is combining biology and chemistry to create sustainable high-performance materials, jet fuels, and specialty chemicals.

Visolis founder and CEO, Deepak Dugar, in the lab.

• I was at CES this week to try the new Pairwise Conscious Greens: they are using CRISPR gene editing to reduce pungency in mustard greens, a leafy green that has not been on many menus due to a bitter taste and pungent smell. Expect it to be the first branded gene edited product to hit US supermarkets mid 2023. You can meet Pairwise at SynBioBeta in May.

Sarah Evanega, Stakeholder Communications at Pairwise.

• Boehringer offers 3T Biosciences $268M to plug its data into biotech's TCR cancer platform: 3T's platform is designed to combine wide-ranging target libraries with machine learning to produce tumor-specific, safer therapies that can be delivered at higher doses.
• Conagen starts first commercial production of sustainable Tyrian purple (aka Royal purple) for textile dye. Tyrian purple is a natural dye traditionally made from sea snails, and Conagen is the first biotechnology company commercializing sustainable, animal-free production of Tyrian purple by fermentation.
• New funding led by Moderna, Bayer, brings Metagenomi's Series B to $275M: "This additional capital gives us visibility on initial clinical milestones as well as an expanded pipeline of in vivo gene editing applications," said Brian C. Thomas, CEO and Founder of Metagenomi.
• Legislative leaders name members of National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology: Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, and Michelle Rozo, former director for technology and national security on the National Security Council, were respectively named chair and vice chair of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology.

Jason Kelly and Michelle Rozo.

• Leaps by Bayer releases their 2022 annual review. Read about this year's highlights and the important milestones they've achieved together with their portfolio companies and great partners.

SynBioBeta 2023 speakers:

With 2023 officially here, we are starting the countdown to The Global Synthetic Biology Conference. Don’t forget to grab your tickets to SynBioBeta 2023!

• Dr. Renee Wegrzyn serves as the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency founded in March 2022 and dedicated to funding break-through technologies and innovations in health.

• Shervin Kamkar is the Vice President of Business Development at Kura Biotech where he leads commercialization, market strategy, and product development for Kura’s Genomics Division.

• Daniel Lin-Arlow is the CEO of Ansa Biotechnologies, which is developing a new way to make DNA that will be faster, cleaner, and more accurate than existing methods.

• Andee Wallace is the co-founder and CEO of Robigo, a company applying synthetic biology to redesign crop treatments and create a more sustainable food system.

Health news

• Ginkgo Bioworks announced it is expanding its R&D facilities, and opening Bioworks7 to conduct mammalian screening at scale. They also announced a new partnership with Prokarium to develop a bactofection platform, a promising new transfection technique for human gene therapy, and a partnership with Esperovax to develop circular RNA-based therapeutics.
• Aanika to enter bio-backed insurance agreement with Satur Farms: In addition to traceability, Aanika is developing next generation products to combat pathogen growth and reduce outbreaks.
• Ensoma announces $85 million financing and agreement to acquire Twelve Bio to advance a portfolio of in vivo engineered cellular medicines.
• ArsenalBio announces first patient dosed in phase 1 clinical trial of AB-1015 as a treatment for ovarian cancer.
• Twist Bioscience and Astellas enter into multitarget antibody discovery research collaboration.
• ReCode Therapeutics announces strategic collaboration with AskBio to explore single vector gene-editing platform.

Regards,
John

---

John Cumbers
Founder, SynBioBeta

Who's hiring?

• Director of Content‍, SynBioBeta, Flexible in the U.S.
• Senior Sales Manager, SynBioBeta, Flexible in the U.S.
• Sales Associate, SynBioBeta, Flexible in the U.S.
• Special Projects, Colorifix, England
• Executive Assistant to the founders, LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• Software Engineer (Full-Stack), LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• Software Engineer (Bioinformatics), LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• Senior Software Engineer (Full-Stack), LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• Senior Software Engineer (Bioinformatics), LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• Head of Customer Success, LatchBio, San Francisco, CA
• BioTech Account Executive, LatchBio, San Francisco, CA

View in Browser »

Like our Digest? Please feel free to share with friends, family, and co-workers!

SynBioBeta, LLC
3559 Mount Diablo Boulevard #2, Lafayette, CA 94549

info@synbiobeta.com

If you no longer wish to receive our emails, you can unsubscribe here.
Modify Your Email Preferences