Biotechnology firmPrellis Biologicshas announced the closure of a $14.5 million Series B funding round alongside the creation of a novel antibody discovery platform.
Effectively a functioning immune system in a dish, the firm’s platform is capable of recreating human cell-to-cell interactions and immune responses, making it ideal for conducting disease therapy R&D. To support the continued evolution of these bioprinted tissues, the company has also gained substantial backing from new investors, who are said to be “extremely excited” about their potential.
“The ‘EXIS’ platform offers unprecedented in-vitro access to a functional human immune system,” said Dr. Melanie P. Matheu, CEO of Prellis Biologics. “We’ve built a platform that enables promising science to be rapidly advanced into new patient therapies. We’re thrilled to continue expanding upon the exciting potential of this technology, thanks to the support of our investors and collaboration partners.”
Multiphoton Holographic technology
Prellis Biologics总部位于旧金山，专门研究血管化通道的生物打印，这是创建功能性人体组织的基础。首先，由于其多光全息技术，该公司能够实现这一目标，这种方法类似于传统的增值税聚合化，在该方法中，激光器用于治疗以高速和分辨率注入活细胞的材料。
In the past, Prellis Biologics has sought to expedite drug R&D and commercialize its technology by integrating it intoCellink’s Holograph-Xbioprinter. At the time, the resulting system was said to be capable of delivering nutrients to scaffolds more efficiently, better supporting their growth into tissues, thus “empowering customers to advance their research in the field of 3D bioprinting human organs.”
Prellis Biologics itself has also targeted bioprinted organoids before, setting out toproduce a human kidney2018年12小时内的血管系统，作为克服细胞恶化阻碍现有研究的一种手段，并在一年后筹集了870万美元，以进一步进一步实验transplantation of bioprinted cells进入活的动物模型。
An ‘Externalized Immune System’
Using its proprietary 3D bioprinting technology, Prellis Biologics now appears to have shifted its focus away from attempting to create vascularized scaffolds, setting out to engineer more complex lymph node organoids instead, and following extensive research in this area, the firm has unveiled a breakthrough with its Externalized Immune System or ‘EXIS.’
据认为，Prellis Biologics的EXI被认为是同类产品中的第一个，据说能够实现诸如B细胞类转换和体细胞超含量之类的相互作用，这是开发抗体的关键的相互作用。该平台还能够破坏细胞的天然故障保护，这通常可以阻止自身抗体发展，因此现在可以加快癌症或自身免疫性疾病（例如癌症）疗法的研发。
Prellis Biologics表示，它已经使用EXIS以各种格式靶向抗原，以在短短3周内生产具有高亲和力，序列多样性和效力的人类抗体。结果，该公司认为其平台有可能“显着减少现有体内或体外药物筛查和疫苗测试方法的发现和铅识别时间”。
To fund the ongoing development of its organoids, the company has also gained fresh investment, taking its total to $29.5 million, in a round led byCelesta Capitaland backed byKhosla冒险。As part of the financing deal, Celesta Capital’s Michael Marks and ex-Berkeley Lights首席运营官Shaun Holt已同意加入Prellis Biologics董事会，并借用其专业知识来指导其未来的增长。
“Today, pharmaceutical antibody discovery takes a long time, carries high costs due to reliance on animals, and the antibodies too rarely perform as hoped once they reach human trials,” added Marks. “We are ready to support marketing for the EXIS platform now that initial deals have helped to prove its great potential.”
3D Bioprinting的治疗潜力
随着3D印刷组织的细胞活力继续前进，其潜在应用也是一种测试新药物，治疗剂甚至疫苗的疗效的手段。例如，自去年以来，HK inno.N一直在与T＆R Biofabto3D Bioprint组织测试模型for the evaluation of new autoimmune and skin disorder remedies.
科学家中国科学院andUniversity of Science and Technology of China, have even managed to use bioprinting to develop a way of“治疗”不可治疗的脊髓损伤。Leveraging a novel bio-ink, the Chinese team created neural stem cell-loaded tissues in July 2021, capable of carrying instructions via impulses from the brain, similar to those seen in living organisms.
More recently, regenerative medicine specialistCTIBIOTECH利用其3 d生物打印技术支持duce a uniquecolon cancer treatment platform。与普罗夫迪夫医科大学and UMHAT-Eurohospital, the tissues are designed to yield reproducible human colon cancer disease models for chemotherapeutic screening applications.
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特色图像显示了Prellis Biologics的3D生物打印外部化免疫系统的高分辨率图像。图像通过Prellis Biologics。
