Cell Based Tech Weekly – Ginkgo Bioworks Helps Moderna with COVID-19 Vaccine, Geltor’s New Product, DSM Acquires Glycom

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Microbial Engineering company, Ginkgo Bioworks announced it will be contributing its microbial discovery, production, and fermentation platform infrastructure to Moderna, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNA) to continue the development of a vaccine candidate for COVID-19. https://cellbased.link/efd3c

  • Why We Care: Moderna’s mRNA technology is a new approach to medicine that uses synthetic biology to program mRNA to trigger cells to generate proteins that could protect against COVID-19. Rather than creating a vaccine that is developed from the weakened virus, the mRNA triggers coronavirus-like proteins to develop intracellularly, which will enable our bodies to strengthen against the real virus. The main advantage of this approach is speed — enabling faster discovery and faster manufacturing
  • More on Moderna clinical trials here

Advancements

3️⃣ Cellular fermentation company, Geltor, has announced the release of its third portfolio product.

  • → Elastapure™: a bioidentical human elastin protein, a protein that, as its name suggests, supports skin elasticity. Elastapure™ is designed for topical skin care. https://cellbased.link/627c7 
  • This is the latest in Geltor’s product portfolio which also includes 
    • Collume™ (2018): animal free marine collagen 
    • HumaColl21™ (2019): a bioidentical human collagen protein
  • Bottom Line: Geltor’s rapid expansion of collagen and elastin product lines are proof of an efficient technology and a scale up platform focused on “bio-advantaged” high value complex proteins. 

🥛 Perfect Day, the company using precision fermentation to produce milk proteins, specifically, β-Lactoglobulin received a no questions/objections letter from the FDA regarding their Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) certification.

What This Means: The β-Lactoglobulin produced from fermentation by the engineered strain of fungus trichoderma reesei is found to be safe for consumption by humans of all ages. https://cellbased.link/ob6

  • According to the FDA letter, “ Perfect Day concludes that protein characterization data show that the sequence of – lactoglobulin produced by fermentation is identical to commercially available bovine produced -lactoglobulin.”

Acquisitions

Dutch chemical and biological sciences company, DSM completed the strategic acquisition of Glycom (Denmark), a global supplier of Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMO) for ~830 million USD. https://cellbased.link/8jo

  • Background: HMOs are complex carbohydrates that make up human breast milk. Through metabolic engineering of yeast cells, Gycom is able to ferment these carbohydrates at scale. 
  • → DSM plans to increase HMO production and improve cost by applying the company’s advanced biotech competences for strain improvement. https://cellbased.link/ca01a
  • Wait, there’s more: DSM’s expertise in precision fermentation is focused on simple sugars and complex carbohydrates rather than complex amino acids/proteins i.e. collagen or β-Lactoglobulin. 
  • DSM also has a joint venture with Cargill for the production of Reb M + D stevia sweetener.
  • Glycom reported 2019 sales of 74 million euros predominantly generated through a long term contract with Nestle 
  • DSM has a robust network to expand these sales strongly for 2021