Move over, gene editing. There’s a new kid on the block. Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering “gene writing,” a kind of genetic medicine it hopes

Tessera Therapeutics scores $230M to ramp up 'gene writing' tech to cure disease

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2021-05-20 19:00:05

Move over, gene editing. There’s a new kid on the block. Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering “gene writing,” a kind of genetic medicine it hopes will surmount the limitations of gene editing and gene therapy—and investors have bet more than $230 million on the approach.

At its core, gene writing simply means writing short or long messages into the genome to treat disease, said Tessera CEO Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D. “What that allows is one to be able to cure or prevent a disease from ever happening by writing in the code of DNA, which of course drives the biology in every single cell in the body,” he said. Tessera is developing multiple ways to do it.

Maltzahn sees gene writing as the next step in the evolution of medicine from small molecules to protein therapeutics to RNA- and DNA-targeting treatments. The approach is based on mobile genetic elements, or MGEs, a class of genes that turns out to be the most abundant category of genes in nature. MGEs are part of the genome that doesn’t code directly for proteins—previously dismissed as “junk DNA”—but rather, evolved to “write themselves into new locations,” Maltzahn said.

“The genomes of furry and green things in the living world are replete with mobile genetic elements,” Maltzahn said. The Flagship Pioneering company has been working under the radar for three years, building technology to evaluate thousands of MGEs in human cells and turn them into medicines. The company came out of the shadows in July 2020.

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