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.