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John P. Danner is president and CEO of Codon Devices,
Inc.
He
shared with PharmaWeek Codon Devices’ work in
Constructive Biology and what lies ahead.
PharmaWeek: Briefly describe Codon Devices and its work.
Mr.
Danner: Codon Devices is focused on enabling commercial applications of
synthetic biology. Our proprietary synthesis and design
technologies are contributing to a paradigm shift that we call
Constructive Biology, which we really view as the next major
wave of innovation in biotechnology.
PharmaWeek: Please define Constructive Biology.
Mr.
Danner: Constructive Biology simply refers to Codon Devices’ massively
industrialized, synthetic approach. Using our BioFAB production
platform, we’ll be able to make genetic constructs so quickly
and cheaply that it will essentially allow all biotechnology
research to begin with constructing an engineered genetic
device, to either test it for functionality or to develop it
into a product.
PharmaWeek: Is Constructive Biology synonymous with synthetic
biology?
Mr.
Danner: The synthetic biology industry has been around for a few years but has
always been too expensive and too slow to really be able to
impact mainline biotechnology applications. Constructive Biology
is a vision we have at Codon Devices that would render these
synthetic approaches in a highly industrialized version. Through
our proprietary technology, we’ll be able to lower prices and
reduce turnaround times, enabling us to deliver synthetic
capabilities to the industry and make them ubiquitous throughout
biotechnology. For example, replacing DNA cloning-based
molecular biology with synthetic-based, rapid-evolution
platforms and engineering platforms to optimize genetic
constructs for protein-engineering and metabolic-engineering
applications.
PharmaWeek: What applications of Constructive Biology is Codon
Devices interested in?
Mr.
Danner: There are many. Starting with the molecular biology space, for example,
introduction of an engineering toolkit would enable molecular
biologists to test sets and be able to do iterative testing in a
much more designed and discrete way. That would effectively
change the workflow of molecular biology. And from that,
Constructive Biology could be powerful in engineering
therapeutics, or rapidly developing vaccines against potential
outbreaks or biothreats.
There are also many applications across the biofuels
space, for example using pathway engineering to design cellular
performance to enable more effective fermentation of bioethanol
sugars into ethanol fuel. In the agricultural space, through
multi-trait engineering we could design specific agricultural
traits into crops or renewable energy feedstocks.
PharmaWeek: What implications does Constructive Biology have
for the therapeutic space?
Mr.
Danner: The concrete opportunity for the therapeutic space is within protein
therapeutics. Having such powerful tools to streamline
development, lower costs, and reduce uncertainty can massively
improve the productivity of protein therapeutic development.
PharmaWeek: What types of products or services does Codon
Devices offer pharmaceutical researchers?
Mr.
Danner: Codon Devices’ BioFAB platform produces genetic constructs quickly
and cheaply. We’ve invested in a design environment upstream
of the BioFAB. The BioFAB itself is capable of producing all
kinds of different genetic constructs. In addition to producing
individual sequence-verified clones, it can produce explicitly
designed, highly diverse, highly pure, low-cost libraries of
constructs and variant libraries of constructs. We’ve also
invested in an assay environment downstream.
So we have the ability to design, and then build,
and then test. Then we can incorporate what we learn from the
assay results back into the design environment, and do it all
over again.
It’s a rapid, closed-loop engineering platform
that allows us to optimize function. We can also use this to
optimize multi-parameter development of all kinds of construct
evolution, including therapeutics. For example, we have the
ability to optimize functional properties such as binding
affinity, stability, and many others.
PharmaWeek: What are some of the challenges you have met with?
Mr.
Danner: The technology is so powerful that it’s applicable in many different
industries. A great challenge is being able to deploy the
technology in the highest-value way, where it can make the most
impact the most quickly. Being able to do that, in the reality
of partnering with other companies from multiple industries, is
probably the most immediate practical challenge we face.
PharmaWeek: To your knowledge, are there any other companies
doing similar work to Codon Devices’?
Mr.
Danner: No, but there are predecessor technologies that have done evolution in
ways that are different from ours. There was a series of
technologies several years ago using DNA shuffling technology,
where essentially the creation of random diversity around a
target construct was used to find a variation of the target
construct with better functionality.
We believe that in many ways, a Constructive Biology
approach is superior. We can deliver that same diversity, but it
can be designed diversity versus random diversity. We only build
what we want. So we can impart sequence-level characteristics
that are known to improve the functionality we are trying to
improve, and we can remove sequence-level characteristics that
are known to be detrimental to the functional performance we are
trying to optimize. Designed diversity is, we think, a whole
generation of technology beyond random diversity.
PharmaWeek: What are next steps for Codon Devices?
Mr.
Danner: We are actively engaged in developing partnerships, in many cases with
therapeutic companies that are trying to quickly and
cost-effectively evolve antibodies or other protein therapeutics
across multiple functional parameters. We believe our approach
will help potential partners really leapfrog how they do protein
therapeutic development today.
Copyright
2007, Cambridge Healthtech Institute. All Rights Reserved.
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