Hi ,

Congratulations to Stef van Grieken and the Cradle team for raising a $24 million Series A funding round! Cradle has partnered with industry giants like Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novozymes, and Twist Bioscience. Their platform uses generative AI and machine learning to accelerate protein design, significantly reducing time and costs in biotech R&D. You can meet Cradle at SynBioBeta 2024 next year and learn more about their web-based software that any team of scientists can use, without help from a bio-informatician or machine learning engineer.

They are now working on more than 12 R&D projects focused on engineering a wide range of protein modalities, including enzymes, vaccines, peptides, and antibodies.

Insights:

• Harnessing Environmental Biodiversity for Synthetic Biology: Biodiversity has provided synthetic biologists with tools, genes, and pathways for many decades. But now biodesigners use nature to learn how to design the biotech strains of the future

• How AI Is Transforming Synthetic Biology: Reaching Far Beyond Biopharma. Discover how synthetic biology is getting a high-tech upgrade with AI, potentially revolutionizing enzyme design, animal-free protein expression, precision fermentation, and beyond.

Industry News:

• The Organoid Odyssey: A Leap Forward in Understanding Pediatric Brain Tumors. Scientists develop mini-brain organoids with unparalleled accuracy, potentially revolutionizing the study of cortical gliomas in children.

• Unlocking Longevity: How a Single Protein Shapes Mice Ageing. Groundbreaking study reveals that the CD300f immune receptor plays a crucial role in determining life expectancy and healthy aging in mice, particularly impacting cognitive health and premature aging.

• Harnessing Floral Superpowers for Cleaner, Greener Medicines. Scientists at the University of Bath have innovatively used cyclic peptides inspired by a tropical flower to enhance the stability and efficiency of drug development.

• Danish Startup Again Launches Revolutionary CO₂ Utilization Plant with $10M Funding: The company's pioneering method utilizes natural bacteria that consume gas to convert waste carbon dioxide (CO₂) into a variety of sustainable chemical products.

Other news:

• Vivici, an innovative B2B ingredients startup company using precision fermentation to make animal-free dairy proteins, selects Ginkgo Bioworks to extend its range of novel dairy proteins. (Ginkgo Bioworks)

• Colorifix harnesses bacteria for non-toxic clothes dyeing: The process of using bacteria to color textiles has been brought to a commercial scale by British company Colorifix, which hopes to cut the fashion industry's use of toxic chemical dyes. (Dezeen.com)

• Scientists at King's College London and bit.bio Collaborate to Develop Multi-Cell Models of the Human Brain With Optimised Open-Source Protocols for Use by Any Researcher (Press release)

• Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, have combined synthetic biology and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a more efficient approach to finding and creating new antimicrobial peptides that are effective against a wide range of bacteria. (Phys.org)

Regards,

John

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John Cumbers

CEO, SynBioBeta

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