Home / A synthetic biology platform to support fungal drug discovery
A synthetic biology platform to support fungal drug discovery
Generating solutions
Status
Competition
Genome Centre(s)
GE3LS
Project Leader(s)
- Dr. Gerard Wright (McMaster University), Dr. Eric Brown (Kapoose Creek Bio),
Fiscal Year Project Launched
Project Description
Fungi have been the source of some of the most effective medicines in history, such as penicillin. However, producing the active medicinal ingredients at scale for R&D has been a key challenge to further fungal drug discovery. This project aims to create a flexible, scalable and cost-efficient synthetic biology platform that supports the synthesis of diverse fungal molecules and produces sufficient compound. It will leverage Kapoose Creek Bio’s (KCB’s) proprietary AI-enabled drug discovery platform (unEarth Rx), which mines nature for new therapeutic drug leads. The platform will use genomics and metabolomics solutions to develop a biosynthetic expression system for genetically-encoded fungal compounds.
The implementation of an in-house synthetic biology platform at KCB will provide a significant competitive advantage, both to accelerate the drug discovery program and enable future clinical-stage partnerships. The project is anticipated to catalyze KCB’s growth and position the company to bring new therapies to market with the potential to counteract cognitive impairment, a major health burden for Canadians, particularly as they age.