Hi ,

Synthetic biology has the potential to completely change how we diagnose, treat, and even cure human diseases. For example, this fast-growing field has played a significant role in the COVID-19 pandemic and has already cured the first patients with life-threatening diseases like sickle cell anemia. Yet, this is just the beginning. Synbio offers us unique opportunities to design entirely new therapeutic modalities that are more precise, effective, and have fewer side effects than existing treatments. Imagine programming cells to cure disease or using microbes to overcome the looming threats of antibiotic resistance. Could we stop the next pandemic in its tracks or finally create effective therapies for mental health? With biology at our side, the potential is limitless.

This newsletter is brought to you by Antheia, which leverages synthetic biology to produce Key Starting Materials (KSMs) and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for essential medicines in a more efficient, agile, and sustainable approach. Antheia is transforming pharmaceutical supply chains, and its platform enables resilient and scalable manufacturing, domestic and rapid-response production, and more equitable access to critical and essential medicines.

We have compiled a list of everything you need to know about synbio for human health and the significant developments in the last months. Continue the discussion at SynBioBeta 2023: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference May 23 - 25, and the track dedicated to this topic.

• This Stem Cell Manufacturing Startup Raised An $80 Million War Chest To Revolutionize Medicine. Cellino Biotech, an autonomous cell therapy manufacturing company, announced an $80 million Series A financing round led by Leaps by Bayer last year. As a result, Cellino plans to expand access to stem cell-based therapies to build the first autonomous human cell foundry in 2025.

Nabiha Saklayen, CEO and co-founder of Cellino.

• There’s A New Species Of Magic Mushroom - Named After Paul Stamets: As we better understand fungi’s unique properties, we can potentially develop a range of medicines beyond mental health. Psilocybin and related tryptamines offer new opportunities for supporting neurological health and helping resolve mood disorders.

There’s a new species of magic mushroom - named after Paul Stamets.

• Ginkgo Has Hired A New Head Of Biopharma To Disrupt The Gene And Cell Therapies Market. Cell therapies save lives but can cost millions of dollars because of how slow and inefficient pharma R&D is. What if cell engineering was outsourced to synbio companies like Ginkgo specializing in programming biology? This could be a game-changer.

Behzad Mahdavi, Senior Vice President Biopharma Manufacturing & Life Sciences Tools at Ginkgo Bioworks.

• Why Some Drugs Cost $2.1 Million Per Dose And How One Company Plans To Change This. PhenomeX, a digital cell biology company, is helping to make drugs faster, better, and ultimately cheaper for the patient. Gene therapy can potentially transform how we treat many medical conditions, but it must be scalable and affordable.

• Sanofi is betting on the potential of AI to transform drug discovery, and they've signed a $1.2 billion biobucks research collaboration with San Francisco-based Atomwise.

• First pig-to-human heart transplant: what can scientists learn? Researchers hope that a person with a genetically modified pig heart will provide a trove of data on the possibilities of xenotransplantation.

• The race to supercharge cancer-fighting T cells. Advances in genome editing and the ability to rewire cells through synthetic biology have led to increasingly elaborate approaches for supercharging T cells for therapy.

• Aera Therapeutics launches with $193 million in financing to enable and advance the next generation of transformative genetic medicines across various modalities and therapeutic areas. Aera’s delivery platform is based on research conducted in the lab of the world-renowned scientist Feng Zhang, a core member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

SynBio for Human Health at SynBioBeta:

Here are some of the upcoming sessions:

Leveraging Synthetic Biology to End Drug Shortages

Past, Present and Future of Health Applications of Synbio and Genomics

How Do We Realize the Promise of Synthetic Biology in Biologic Drug Development?

The Medicine of Mushrooms for People and Planet

Building Resilient Pharmaceutical Supply Chains for Accessible Medicines

Related Sponsors

We hope you enjoyed this SynBio for Human Health wrap-up newsletter, and I hope that you’ll choose to join us in May at SynBioBeta 2023: The Global Synthetic Biology Conference.

Regards,

Fiona

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Fiona Mischel 

Director, Human Health Content and Innovation

SynBioBeta

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3559 Mount Diablo Boulevard #2, Lafayette, CA 94549

info@synbiobeta.com

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