He compares Tessera’s therapies to the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines currently being produced in their billions the similarity in the therapies’ compositions suggests that medicines developed using gene writing will be just as scalable and affordable. Tessera is also expanding its lab space, but Maltzahn is not concerned that scaling up gene writing therapies will pose a challenge. Maltzahn says the challenge Tessera faces going forward is likely to be talent, rather than capital or opportunity, so the recent investment the company has seen will go towards building an “incredible team of scientists”.
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In January, Tessera announced that it had raised an impressive $230m in its series B financing round. “The progress we’ve made has opened our eyes to just how exceptional gene writing as a category is going to be, and how central the ingenuity of mobile genetic elements is going to be to that future.” Making gene writing a reality “When we started, the premise of this class of machinery of being programmable and useful for genetic medicine, and applicable to the human genome, had scant support,” Maltzahn says. Maltzahn adds that the company’s initial focus will be on grievous illness, several rare genetic disorders and oncology, before developing the platform to treat an even greater number of diseases. “In fact, if you’re trying to cure a disease, or prevent it from ever happening, you can make an argument that DNA is the rightful home for many of those therapies.”
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“DNA being the code of life as we know it, the opportunity to be able to make modifications with very high precision to a subset of cells in your body is going to be applicable to diseases in every therapeutic area,” Maltzahn says. Maltzahn says those with Huntington’s disease, a rare and incurable degenerative condition, are just one patient group that could benefit from gene writing therapies. The ability to correct errors in genes could see Tessera’s technology lead to cures for all manner of genetic disorders – including those that are rare and currently untreatable with existing genetic technologies. “Many of these have been honing the ability to be exceedingly efficient, to be exceedingly sequence specific, and to have very high fidelity, or low error rate, of inserting their code into new locations.” New hope for genetic disease treatment
“And fortunately, the crucible of what nature has been looking for in this unique life form called the mobile genetic element, maps tightly into the unmet needs and technology attributes that the future of genetic medicine needs. “You could argue that mobile genetic elements are the tallest shoulders you could ever stand on to build a technology,” Maltzahn says.
Recombination is where MGE DNA is directly exchanged between an origin site and a target site in the genome. Transposition involves cutting the DNA of an MGE out of the genomic origin site and pasting it into a target site in the genome. In retrotransposition, MGE DNA is transcribed from a genomic origin site and then reverse transcribed into a target site in the genome. Tessera is exploring three different ways that MGEs can alter genomes for therapeutic benefit. Introducing the Excellence Awards & Rankings 2022.
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