Category: Enzyme Services

Optimizing Enzyme Expression and Performance with Zymtronix

Posted on by Ena Cratsenburg

Optimizing enzymes for Zymtronix’s cell-free manufacturing platform

Today we are pleased to announce our partnership with Zymtronix, a developer of cell-free process technologies. Together we aim to optimize enzymes used in Zymtronix’s proprietary cell-free platform for the production of important ingredients in food, agriculture, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Enzymatic biocatalysis is a powerful manufacturing technology that can enable the production of a wide range of chemicals and molecules. Zymtronix’s cell-free platform is designed to solve challenges associated with traditional biocatalysis and seeks to enable the production of a wide range of products with precision and productivity. By partnering with us to build and produce bioengineered market-ready enzymes, Zymtronix anticipates being able to extend its solutions into the pharma, nutrition, agriculture markets, among others.

Zymtronix aims to leverage Ginkgo Enzyme Services to discover, optimize, and produce enzymes

Ginkgo Enzyme Services offers partners end-to-end support for the discovery, optimization, and production of enzymes for diverse applications. Through the partnership, we will leverage our suite of enzyme services to engineer enzymes for Zymtronix’s applications using metagenomic enzyme discovery as well as improve enzyme expression and production host performance.

We’re thrilled to welcome Zymtronix to the platform and support their applications in sustainable ingredients and beyond. We’ve built out our platform to serve a wide variety of enzyme discovery, engineering, optimization and scale up efforts, and we’re so excited for the work to come in this partnership. Zymtronix’s cell-free biomanufacturing platform is pioneering solutions for various industries, and we’re eager to leverage our end-to-end capabilities and help expand its efforts in transforming the way enzymes are used.

“This partnership will greatly accelerate our work of bringing the precision and scalability of cell-free biomanufacturing and sustainable ingredients to market starting with alternatives to animal sources; Ginkgo is uniquely able to support us with both enzyme engineering and strain expression, helping us continue to accelerate commercialization,” said Stéphane Corgié, CEO-CTO and founder, Zymtronix. “We hope to extend this partnership in the future to facilitate the production of multiple end-market products.”

To learn more about Ginkgo Enzyme Services, please visit ginkgobioworks.com/enzyme-services/.

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

The Enzyme Intelligence Virtual Event

Posted on by Jake Wintermute

Enzymes are having a moment

These days, there’s a lot going on in the enzyme space. Machine learning (ML) is changing the way we think about the previously hard problems of modeling protein structures and predicting protein functions. Enzyme-driven industries like pharmaceutical manufacturing, diagnostics, and industrial green chemistry are looking forward to new and better enzymes made possible by ML.

At Ginkgo, we love technologies that make biology easier to engineer. We’ve built an ML-guided enzyme engineering stack that draws on our Foundry’s established strengths in assembling smart DNA libraries, engineering organisms, and screening in (ultra) high throughput. The result is the new Ginkgo Enzyme Services offering that enables our customers to discover new enzymes and optimize existing ones. We’re super excited to share the results being delivered.

So let’s take a moment to talk about enzymes

On December 15th, Ginkgo hosted the Enzyme Intelligence Virtual Event. Dr. Emily Wrenbeck, Head of Protein Engineering, presented to an audience of more than 450 about how Ginkgo’s Foundry combines ML with massive experimental datasets to enable enzyme engineering.

The presentation was structured around 4 case studies:

  • Enzyme Discovery. An ML-guided search of a large metagenomic library led Ginkgo to an unexpected corner of sequence space, producing dozens of candidate enzymes and opening up IP options for the customer.
  • Better Activity. A customer’s project-critical enzyme had a reputation for being recalcitrant to engineering. Iterative protein design cycles produced a 10-fold improvement in activity over wild type as measured by kcat/KM.
  • Better Specificity. A naturally sourced enzyme made 4 undesired byproducts, with the desired product only 10% of the total. Ginkgo tested over 10,000 variants with ultra high throughput GC-MS to bring the product specificity to over 75%
  • Better Biocatalysts. A customer’s enzyme suffered from a low S:H (synthesis:hydrolysis) ratio. In a single round of engineering, Ginkgo was able to improve both enzyme speed and specificity under industrially relevant process conditions.

A recurring theme in the event was the value added by integrating ML tools with the broader capabilities of Ginkgo’s foundry. An engineering cycle that brings together DNA assembly, assay development, high-throughput screening, computational tools, and human experts is required to consistently deliver improved enzyme performance.

Far from replacing data, ML makes data more valuable. The massive biological datasets Ginkgo can generate were key to the success of these enzyme engineering programs.

It’s time for end-to-end Enzyme Services

Following the technical presentation, Ginkgo’s Business Development team took the stage to answer questions about Ginkgo’s latest offering. Building on powerful ML-guided enzyme engineering capabilities, Gingko Enzyme Services offers end-to-end solutions for R&D leaders looking for better enzymes.

  • Novel Enzyme Discovery. Ginkgo’s large in-house metagenomic libraries are combined with ultra high throughput screening to identify new enzymes with a desired activity. These enzymes are often unrelated to previously described candidates, opening up new IP options for customers.
  • Function & Stability Optimization. ML-guided protein design is combined with a range of sequence-based, structure-based, and classical enzymology tools to improve a candidate enzyme’s activity, stability, specificity or expression level.
  • Robust Host Strains. Ginkgo customers have access to proprietary bacterial and fungal host strains optimized for protein production, including methanol-free Pichia pastoris and low viscosity Aspergillus niger.
  • Fermentation Process Development. When it comes to commercial-scale enzyme production, Ginkgo offers automated DOE (Design of Experiments) in Ambr® 250 bioreactors to optimize the production process.
  • Manufacturing Scale-Up & Tech Transfer. Ginkgo can perform pilot-scale fermentation up to 3,000 L. Customers are supported in the development of downstream processing and purification methods. Ginkgo can transfer processes to a manufacturing partner, including for GMP production.

Make the most of this moment for enzymes

A key theme of the Enzyme Services portion of the event was the flexibility of Ginkgo’s offering. As a horizontal platform, Ginkgo supports customers through the entire enzyme R&D process from discovery to development and deployment. This versatility is essential to serve the diverse needs of customers across a range of enzyme-powered industries including: animal feed, biocatalysis, diagnostics, green chemistry, metabolic engineering, mRNA manufacturing, waste remediation, and more!

A recording of the Enzyme Intelligence Virtual Event is available here. Ready to engage Ginkgo’s Foundry for your project? Have questions? Contact [email protected]

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

Launching Ginkgo Enzyme Services

Posted on by Behzad Mahdavi

Enzyme Services to Enable Applications across Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics, Food and Agriculture, and Beyond

Today we are very pleased to announce the launch of Ginkgo Enzyme Services. Ginkgo Enzyme Services is powered by ultra high throughput screening and machine learning-guided protein design, as well as optimized proprietary bacterial and fungal host strains. Ginkgo Enzyme Services solves challenges for R&D teams developing enzymes, from discovery of novel enzyme activity through optimization of enzyme function and large scale manufacturing.

A virtual event on Dec. 15 will give an overview of Ginkgo’s Enzyme Intelligence approach to machine learning-guided enzyme engineering

Enzymes are valuable biocatalysts used across a wide range of industries including in the production of medicines, food, materials, and beyond. Our end-to-end Enzyme Services support R&D leaders looking to identify new enzyme activity to replace existing chemical synthesis steps, improve enzyme specificity, activity, and stability in industrially relevant conditions, and optimize the manufacturing of enzymes for reduced cost of goods and environmental impact.

We’ve supported enzyme R&D programs across a wide range of industries, including biopharma manufacturing and discovery. Notable enzyme services projects include breakthrough work with Aldevron to improve the manufacturing efficiency of vaccinia capping enzyme, a critical reagent used in the production of mRNA vaccines, and a recently announced partnership with Merck to develop biocatalysts for active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing.

Our suite of services covers the full end-to-end process for enzyme R&D, providing synergies between enzyme sequence, host strain, and manufacturing processes that can enable commercial success.

Ginkgo Enzyme Services includes:

  • Novel Enzyme Discovery
  • Enzyme Function & Stability Optimization
  • Access to Optimized Host Strains for Robust Expression
  • Optimized Fermentation Process Development
  • Manufacturing Scale-Up, Process Development & Tech Transfer

“Most R&D teams working on developing enzymes expect to need to stitch together a bunch of different services and tools, both in-house and external to make their enzymes work,” said Jake Janey, PhD, a pioneer in the field of biocatalysis. “The ability for Ginkgo to guide the process all the way, providing many intermediate touchpoints with data and prototypes for development and decision making, is a great value-add.”

At Ginkgo, we are constantly working to improve our platform to provide best-in-class services to enable our customers to meet their R&D challenges head on. As a horizontal platform, we have the flexibility, breadth, and scale to serve customers across biocatalysis, diagnostics, and beyond with the full spectrum of tools they need to discover, develop, and deploy enzymes for their processes and products.

With world class expression hosts, automation, computational design, and fermentation capabilities, we are excited to partner with companies across all industries to bring their enzyme-dependent products from conception to market more swiftly and reliably than ever before.

Virtual event details:

Join us for Enzyme Intelligence, a virtual event featuring Ginkgo’s head of protein engineering, Emily Wrenbeck, on December 15, 2022. Sign up here.

Learn more about Ginkgo Enzyme Services at our webpage, or write to us at [email protected].

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

Optimizing Crucial Drug Manufacturing of APIs with Merck

Posted on by Cindy Chang

Ginkgo to engineer key biocatalytic enzymes for potential use in Merck’s drug manufacturing processes

Today, Ginkgo is proud to announce a collaboration with Merck to optimize the manufacture of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The aim is to engineer up to four enzymes for use as biocatalysts in Merck’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing efforts. Through this collaboration, we will leverage our extensive experience in cell engineering and enzyme design, along with our capabilities in automated high throughput screening, manufacturing process development/optimization, bioinformatics and analytics to deliver optimal strains for expression of targeted biocatalysts.

Biocatalysis is a sustainable and effective alternative to some steps in industrial chemical synthesis

Enzyme biocatalysts can reduce costly synthesis and purification steps, thereby decreasing production costs. Through this collaboration, we aim to optimize several biocatalysts by leveraging our world-class proprietary fungal strains, cell line development, enzyme engineering and optimization, and multiomics expertise.

“Ginkgo’s fungal strains present a major opportunity for improving biocatalysis. E. coli is currently the mainstay host for expressing enzymes, but a large number of enzymes will not express properly in E. coli, and those that do express in E. coli may have better homologs that only express in fungal strains,” said Behzad Mahdavi, our Senior Vice President of Biopharma Manufacturing and Life Sciences Tools. “This enzyme optimization project with Merck has the potential to help reduce the cost of goods and enable a more robust supply chain for APIs.”

Merck is a pioneer in biocatalysis, improving manufacturing of crucial medicines. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Merck and to be leveraging our platform capabilities for improved enzyme activity and production. Ginkgo’s platform model enables us to identify improved enzymes and develop powerful fungal strains and fermentation processes for enzyme manufacturing, empowering downstream API production for our customers.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Ginkgo will earn an upfront research and development fee and is eligible for success-based research and development milestone payments. In addition, Ginkgo is eligible to earn commercial milestone payments for each of a specified number of biocatalysis targets, which have the potential to total, in the aggregate, up to $144 million. To learn more about Ginkgo’s work in enzyme discovery, visit this webpage and talk to our team today.

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

Developing Synthetic Biotics for Gout with Synlogic

Posted on by Patrick Boyle

Ginkgo and Synlogic announce the second drug candidate—a treatment for gout—in their partnership to develop synthetic biotics

Last November, we announced that SYNB1353, an engineered strain of the probiotic bacteria E. coli Nissle (EcN) designed and developed through a collaboration between Ginkgo and Synlogic, was to be nominated for investigational new drug (IND) status with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This would mark the first medicine developed on Ginkgo’s platform to enter IND-enabling studies but just the beginning of our work with Synlogic to create living medicines.

Today, we’re pleased to share Synlogic’s announcement of SYNB2081, a new drug candidate developed in partnership between our two companies for the treatment of gout.

Addressing unmet needs for patient care

Gout is a complex form of inflammatory arthritis that occurs when excess uric acid in the body forms crystals in the joints. Patients experience a range of symptoms, including intense joint pain, inflammation and redness, and limited range of motion in the affected joints. Unfortunately, current treatment options present limitations in both safety and efficacy, highlighting a need for new approaches.Gout is also a recognized risk factor in chronic kidney disease (CKD).

SYNB2081 is a synthetic biotic designed to lower uric acid for the treatment of gout. We’re honored to work with the Synlogic team in this pioneering next step to potentially help patients living with gout. As we’ve seen the Synlogic pipeline develop the past year, we’re eager to continue supporting Synlogic in generating additional therapeutic candidates.

SYNB2081 is named after one of the largest and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex specimens in the world. Nicknamed “Sue,” the specimen is housed at the Field Museum in Chicago and is officially named FMNH PR 2081. Data from “Sue” suggests that dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus rex suffered from gout much in the same way as other reptiles and birds do.

What if we could program microbes to act as medicine?

“With our second drug candidate into clinical development, this not only demonstrates the value of combining Ginkgo’s Codebase with our Synthetic Biotic platform, but also highlights the potential to develop Synthetic Biotics across a range of diseases, giving us the potential to provide meaningful new treatment options to patients in need,” said Dr. David Hava, Chief Scientific Officer, Synlogic.

The advancement of SYNB2081 and SYNB1353 are clear indicators of the transformative platform Synlogic has created to power new medicines through synthetic biology.

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

Optimizing the Brightness of Glowing Plants with Light Bio

Posted on by Jason Kelly

Leveraging Ginkgo’s engineering capabilities to optimize performance of Light Bio’s light-emitting plants

We’re excited to announce a new collaboration with Light Bio – a company creating bioluminescent plants for home and garden. The agreement will leverage Ginkgo’s plant cell assays for bioluminescence engineering. The aim: to improve the luminescent output and efficiency of the enzymes within Light Bio’s glowing ornamental plants.

Nothing captures the wonder of biology quite like seeing glowing plants in person. Our platform enables developers to imagine with biology and to design all types of cells, from bacteria and yeast to mammalian and plant cells. We’re so excited to bring this unique application onto our platform and to help Light Bio bring the magic of glowing plants to people.

Light Bio has discovered a new type of bioluminescence mechanism and uses synthetic biology to engineer plants to efficiently emit light. The original light emission pathway Light Bio uses in its glowing plants comes from bioluminescent mushrooms. The company is now focused on expanding its engineering capabilities to support the creation of glowing plants.

“We are excited to collaborate with Ginkgo toward additional multifold output and efficiency improvements powered by Ginkgo’s plant cell engineering capabilities across both individual enzyme and metabolic pathway improvements,” said Keith Wood, CEO, Light Bio.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

Developing Water Quality Biosensors with FREDSense

Posted on by Jason Kelly

Ginkgo’s strain development capabilities to help develop advanced biosensors

Today, we’re excited to announce our partnership with FREDsense Technologies Corp, a next generation water quality platform company leveraging synthetic biology to build field kits for faster, cheaper, and more efficient analysis. Through this partnership, we seek to build four distinct microbial strain biosensors, compatible with FREDsense’s field-ready hardware for remote water quality monitoring applications.

Demand for scalable monitoring and testing systems has increased, as water quality becomes an ever-growing environmental and public health concern. Conventional water quality test results are often delayed, since samples must be transported to labs for chemical analysis. FREDsense builds portable solutions to efficiently assess the chemicals in the water at the source. This allows for rapid modification of water treatment processes in real-time without the need for external lab equipment.

Supporting real-time field detection of harmful molecules and toxins in any water source

The biosensors in development by Ginkgo aim to support real-time field detection of harmful molecules, and may be used to generate solutions for groundwater and industrial water management systems.

Partnering with FREDsense is an exciting opportunity to apply our strain development capabilities to powerful biosensor technology for an important application. Protecting our water sources is a mission critical initiative: life on this planet as we know it depends on it. We’re eager to work toward enhancing the capabilities of FREDsense’s platform to monitor for harmful contaminants in water.

“Water is our most critical resource, and we now have the technology to detect in real-time many of the threats or contaminants that can impact the water that our environments and communities depend on,” says David Lloyd, CEO of FREDsense. “Through this partnership with Ginkgo, we aim to introduce rapid, simple and accurate testing to deliver water quality monitoring systems to those that most need it. We believe that synthetic biology is the key to solving some of the biggest challenges facing the water industry globally and are very excited to partner with Ginkgo on this vision.”

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

What will you grow with Ginkgo?

New Platform Venture: Launching BiomEdit

Posted on by Jason Kelly

BiomEdit intends to leverage Ginkgo’s platform to discover and develop microbiome-based animal health products to improve animal health, animal protein production, and livestock disease monitoring.

We’re excited to announce the launch of BiomEdit, a microbiome innovation company that is expected to discover, develop, and introduce novel probiotics, bioactive molecules, engineered microbial medicines and microbial monitoring services for animal health.

Microbiome science is a rapidly growing field creating breakthroughs in animal health based on the microbial communities that live in animals and their surrounding environment. BiomEdit intends to discover, develop and introduce differentiated products that address some of the greatest needs for innovation in animal health, including medicated feed ingredients, nutritional health and therapeutics for livestock and pet species, as well as biosecurity technology for animal disease monitoring.

BiomEdit is Ginkgo’s latest platform venture, created in partnership with Elanco Animal Health — a leading global animal health company.

In October 2021, Elanco announced its intention to carve out its microbiome platform and pipeline under the leadership of Aaron Schacht, BiomEdit CEO and former Elanco executive vice president of Innovation, Regulatory and Business Development, to concentrate and focus more resources on its high value late-stage Pet Health pipeline. BiomEdit is the result of this separation, and was developed with Ferment Co., the company creation studio that helps ideate and launch new companies across a variety of end-markets that use cell programming to support human and environmental health and well-being.

Elanco will contribute intellectual property and a pipeline of ongoing programs to BiomEdit, which will be staffed with members of the former Elanco microbiome R&D team. The team brings the expertise and experience needed to build on the foundation of microbiome work started at Elanco. By leveraging foundational programs from Elanco, intellectual property from both Elanco and Ginkgo, and an experienced team, BiomEdit should be well positioned as a stand-alone company to develop and launch innovative products to address unmet needs in animal health.

“Livestock producers and veterinarians are calling for new products that address antibiotic resistance and improve livestock sustainability,” said Mr. Schacht. “Coupling the platform, pipeline and deep expertise of the former Elanco microbiome team with Ginkgo’s unique screening and strain engineering capabilities will accelerate and amplify our ability to advance novel animal microbiome inspired products for animal health.”

“Elanco is excited to continue its participation in the microbiome by partnering with Ginkgo, Viking Global Investors and Anterra Capital to create the next-generation animal health innovation player,” said Jeff Simmons, president and CEO of Elanco Animal Health. “We wish Aaron and his team the best as they build out this novel innovation platform to address unmet needs in animal health, such as alternatives to antibiotics.”

Ginkgo has significant expertise in the discovery, design and monitoring of microbes at scale for a wide array of functions.

BiomEdit plans to leverage Ginkgo’s state-of-the-art cell programming platform to improve the design and development of probiotics, bioactives, engineered microbial medicines, and microbial monitoring services. BiomEdit joins other Ginkgo platform ventures such as Joyn Bio, Motif FoodWorks, Allonnia, Arcaea, Verb Biotics and Ayana Bio.

We are always on the lookout for opportunities to accelerate our partners’ abilities to address massive challenges, such as antibiotic resistance in livestock. Together, we see Ginkgo and BiomEdit addressing significant opportunities in the animal health industry with new breakthroughs based on microbiome science. We deeply depend on the health of animals in our ecosystem and supply chains; the potential applications for our cell programming platform in this area are far reaching.

In addition to the assets and intellectual property contributed by Elanco and Ginkgo, BiomEdit is launching with a targeted Series A funding raise of $40 million, with participation by Viking Global Investors and Anterra Capital. In exchange for their respective asset and intellectual property contributions, Elanco and Ginkgo are expected to retain approximately 40% combined proportional ownership of BiomEdit, on a fully-diluted basis, upon the completion of the Series A financing. Elanco’s ownership will be in non-voting shares.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted on behalf of Elanco as sole placement agent on the financing.

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

Discovering Novel Live Biotherapeutics with Microba

Posted on by Jen Wipf

What if you could use bacteria as therapeutics?

Microba Life Sciences, a precision microbiome science company, and Ginkgo announced a partnership to identify single-strain, live bacteria product (LBP) candidates against autoimmune diseases. The collaboration aims to build on Microba’s precision approach to LBP development with an in-depth evaluation of the company’s strains using Ginkgo’s high throughput, automated screening capabilities.

Microba will leverage Ginkgo’s high throughput screening capabilities to identify potential therapeutic candidates for autoimmune diseases.

The human gut microbiome is composed of trillions of bacteria that have an outsized influence on human health and disease. In recent years, scientists have developed a deeper understanding of the relationship between specific bacteria residing in the gut and various health outcomes, leading to a growing interest in using bacteria for therapeutic applications. Clinical trials using live biotherapeutics – biological products that contain live microorganisms applicable to the prevention, treatment, or cure of a disease – have delivered promising results.

There is growing consensus that live biotherapeutics may represent a major class of therapeutics in the coming years.

“We believe the human microbiome currently represents a missing piece in the treatment of major chronic diseases, and as a result a number of microbiome-based therapeutics are progressing through clinical development globally” said Luke Reid, CEO at Microba. “Ginkgo’s high throughput screening automation combined with our novel data-driven approach to therapeutic discovery from the microbiome can potentially accelerate development of breakthrough new drugs for autoimmune diseases.”

Leveraging Ginkgo’s platform to discover, develop, and optimize live biotherapeutics

Through this partnership, Ginkgo will provide high-throughput screening for Microba’s proprietary library of human microbiome-isolated strains, with the goal of improving treatment for autoimmune diseases such as lupus, psoriatic arthritis, and certain autoimmune liver diseases. Microba plans to leverage Ginkgo’s high-throughput anaerobic culturing, multi-omics data collection and analysis, functional bioassay screening, and media and fermentation optimization capabilities to generate data sets that may help characterize potential therapeutic and non-therapeutic uses of the strains. The initial partnership combining Microba’s biobank and Ginkgo’s anaerobic development capabilities is expected to run approximately two years.

Microba is doing truly innovative work during an exciting time for the field of microbiome science. We’re happy to welcome new partners like Microba as we apply our platform to more applications in the living therapeutics and microbiome space.

Microba plans to launch its initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Australian Securities Exchange on April 5. In connection with the partnership, Ginkgo is investing $3.5 million USD in Microba. The IPO was fully underwritten by Canaccord Genuity and Bell Potter.

Find the full press release here along with all of the latest news from the Ginkgo team.

Investigational Synthetic Biotic Medicine for Homocystinuria with Synlogic

Posted on by Patrick Boyle

Homocystinuria (HCU) is an inherited disorder that affects tens of thousands of people every day. HCU occurs when a person is unable to metabolize the amino acid methionine, a precursor to homocysteine; the result is an excessive accumulation of homocysteine and its metabolites in a person’s blood and urine. Patients develop multiple symptoms, including bone defects, intellectual disabilities, and life-threatening blood vessel obstructions. Many patients are required to comply with rigid, restrictive diets and have few treatment options available.

What if we could tell bacteria inside these patients to metabolize methionine, lowering homocysteine levels and reducing the effects of diseases like HCU?

SYNB1353, an engineered strain of the probiotic bacteria E. coli Nissle (EcN), was designed and is being developed through a collaboration between Synlogic and Ginkgo to do exactly that. This novel strain has the ability to consume methionine in the human gut, helping to avoid excessive accumulation and conversion to homocysteine in plasma. High-throughput testing of codebase libraries by Ginkgo enabled SYNB1353 to advance from preclinical proof-of-concept to candidate strain in the space of a year.

“SYNB1353 is an exciting addition to the Synlogic pipeline aimed at helping patients living with diseases of methionine metabolism. Starting with HCU, we see these diseases as the natural next step in our metabolic portfolio after the successful proof of concept of synthetic biotics in phenylketonuria announced earlier this year. This program builds on what we have learned from our metabolic program work to date, with the potential to provide a new therapeutic option to reduce the devastating consequences of these diseases.” said Dr. David Hava, chief scientific officer at Synlogic. “The advancement of SYNB1353 illustrates both the potential of our Synthetic Biotic platform to generate new therapeutic candidates and the value of our collaboration with Ginkgo.”

SYNB1353 is the first product developed through a research collaboration between Synlogic and Ginkgo and the first investigational medicine developed on Ginkgo’s platform to enter IND-enabling studies.

Synlogic expects to file an investigational new drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for SYNB1353 and begin clinical development in 2022. Researchers from Synlogic and Ginkgo will present preclinical data supporting advancement of SYNB1353 into IND-enabling studies at the International Congress of Inborn Errors of Metabolism 2021. The poster, Development of an Investigational Methionine-consuming Synthetic Biotic Medicine (SYNB1353) for the Treatment of Homocystinuria, will be available at the International Congress of Inborn Errors of Metabolism 2021 on November 21-23, 2021 in Sydney, Australia.

We’re so honored to be able to support Synlogic in building their incredible platform to provide potential new treatment options for people living with difficult to treat diseases. This is just the beginning for a new generation of medicines unlocked by the power of synthetic biology, and we’re excited to be working with Synlogic on multiple additional preclinical programs in their portfolio.

Read the full press release here.