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Biotechnology start-up核has raised $42.5 million towards the launch of a new desktop 3D bioprinter with the potential to significantly broaden the accessibility of the protein models required for drug discovery.
Known as the ‘eProtein,’ this system is designed to ramp up the rate at which scientists can create the samples needed to study protein-to-protein interactions (PPIs), tests that are vital to better understanding and treating deadly diseases.
By reducing the lead times of such models from weeks or months to just 24 hours, the machine’s creators say that it could not only help accelerate drug discovery, but make it easier and more ergonomic to achieve. To help make this ambition a reality, Nuclera’s newfound funding is therefore set to be used for both accelerating its bioprinting R&D, and bringing the technology to market for the first time.
“使药物发现的关键是使蛋白质可访问，” Nuclera的联合创始人迈克尔·陈（Michael Chen）told Sifted。“So we want our customers to be able to have these bioprinters right at the benchtop, to be able to make proteins and ultimately characterize proteins and discover drugs against these proteins on a single platform.”
“The new financing and partners we are announcing today is a strong vote of confidence in our mission to increase the accessibility of drug discovery.”
核’s ‘digital microfluidic’ technology
由三位科学家在2013年成立University of Cambridgetogether, Nuclera is a biotech firm on a mission to improve access to scientific experimentation. This ethos was developed by the company’s Co-founders personally, who say that “inaccessibility was the key bottleneck in biology” during their studies, thus they began dreaming up new ways to address this.
What the scientists came up with was an approach that they call ‘eDrop digital microfluidic’ technology. In essence, this lab-on-a-chip approach harnesses the TFT electronics used to create consumer displays, to screen applied DNA droplets for protein expression, before turning these signals into purified nanoliter-scale 3D printed proteins.
In doing so, the technology effectively democratizes the process of analyzing mammalian, insect, plant and bacterial cells, which currently requires a significant amount of financing and lab equipment to achieve. According to Chen, Nuclera’s eDrop approach therefore has the potential to address biotech’s “fundamental productivity problems of today,” as well as the clinical challenges of tomorrow.
“Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that is used to treat cancers and other human diseases,” explains Chen. “Immunotherapy is just a protein that they’re getting injected into their body. What if we could use this to manufacture drugs for people in a distributed fashion, not necessarily in a central manufacturing plant, but throughout hospitals, clinics and even in the home environment?”
Marketing protein 3D bioprinting
Backed by investors old and new, includingM＆G,Amadeus Capital Partners,E Ink,RT Partners,Future Planet Capital,G. K. Gohand theBritish Business Bank Future Fund, Nuclera’s Series B funding round has provided it with the funding needed to seriously ramp up the development and application of its eProtein bioprinter.
At first, the firm intends to target research and drug discovery clients with its new machine, as it anticipates being able to address their protein production and screening needs, before going on to integrate its technology into a more ambitious system with wider capabilities.
In fact, using its recently-raised capital, Nuclera has outlined plans to build an “all encompassing proteomics platform.” Although the company has yet to reveal the exact form this machine will take, it says the system will “unify protein expression and characterization,’ in a way that “increases scientific reproducibility, accelerates drug discovery and contributes to the ever-expanding bio-economy.”
“ Nuclera正在带来快速的原型制作（直到现在的概念）来生物技术，并通过加快研究并开放全新的创新途径，它将在众多市场中产生深远的影响。”Amadeus Capital Partners的执行合伙人。“ Nuclera的Eprotein平台将目前存在于蛋白质组学中的非常分散的工作流程结合在一起。”
“We have been very impressed with the quality of the team that Michael and his co-founders have assembled and the unique technology they are developing.”
3D bioprinting’s investment boom
尽管3D生物打印仍然处于相对较早的发展阶段，而且许多这样的技术尚未被推向市场，但在过去的一年中，他们的发展已经涌入了大量资本。
Towards the end of 2021,3D系统它的承诺加倍，以开发3D生物打印器官acquisition of Volumetric Biotechnologies。Set to be worth up to $400 million, the deal could allow the firm to broaden the application of its ‘Print to Perfusion’ process, and move from focusing lung scaffolds, to bioprinting two further organs.
Shortly afterwards,库存生活科学筹集了自己的2500万美元，以帮助加速其专有的商业化RASTRUM 3D bioprinter。当时，Inventia表示，其细胞培养技术有可能在生物医学研究和药物发现市场中开设一个利基市场，估计该市场价值超过400亿美元。
Elsewhere, regenerative medicine start-up愈合形状has also raised a significant amount of capital to fund the R&D of its3D生物打印乳房植入物。Based around living patient cells, the company’s tissue grafts are designed to help treat women who have undergone a mastectomy after breast cancer, and are said to feature a much-reduced risk of rejection.
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Featured image shows an engineer using a Nuclera system. Photo via Nuclera.
