

Why the First YC-Backed Biotech Company May Just Be the Future of Pharma - katm
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/16/why-the-first-yc-backed-biotech-company-may-just-be-the-future-of-pharma/

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unclesaamm
The combination of speculative hype in the headline ("May Just Be") and the
fact that this is YC-backed made me laugh out loud. Sometimes I forget that
Hacker News is sponsored and run by YCombinator. The tone is always so
rigorous and skeptical, until something made by YC comes along. Keep it
joyful.

~~~
personjerry
Yeah, seems to me like this article is just advertising for YC. The only real
content is the suggestion that biotech is now viable for accelerators/VCs but
with no citations that point is weak. Not that I mind reading about YC's
investments, it's just that Hacker News articles generally contain at least
SOME useful/interesting content.

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JunkDNA
Biotech needs a serious kick in the pants. It has always been remarkable to me
just how little automation is used in the field of molecular biology. There is
a huge amount of work that involves humans doing repetitive tasks and then
waiting for something to happen. This increases cycle times, limits the number
of hypotheses you can test, and is rate-limiting for the whole field. You
already have the problem that you are working on living things which need time
to grow, reproduce, eat, etc...

Not saying any of it is easy to automate by a long shot. But that kind of
innovation is going to be what is needed to propel the field forward.

~~~
timthimmaiah
I've done a lot of work on this @
[https://www.teselagen.com/](https://www.teselagen.com/)

More specifically, we are able to automate combinatorial gene assembly
straight from a web app interfacing with a TECAN microfluidic liquid handling
robot.

Here's a proof of concept with a simulator, but I've tested this in a live
enviornment.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWA1O0DHEh8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWA1O0DHEh8)

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frisco
Teselagen is cool design software but there's a whole other side of the
equation.

I don't see any microfluidics in that video, unless one of those reservoir
blocks or plates is actually something else?

You know that's pretty far from really automating combinatorial gene assembly
:p You need a lot more than a Tecan to do that kind of cloning; even just the
assembly reaction (Gibson?), which is the simplest part is going to be better
off in a thermocycler or incubator compared to a warmed deck block. Tecans are
pretty unusable at volumes below 2-3 ul, too, so setting up the reaction isn't
always straight forward, especially if you need to e.g., PCR fragments out for
the assembly.

Transcriptic's API covers the rest of the devices:
[https://www.transcriptic.com/platform](https://www.transcriptic.com/platform)

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mylons
It's disappointing that more biotech isn't ultimately funded by YC. I'm sure
it's just due to the cost of starting and running a pre-revenue biotech is
much higher than a company starting a pure software product.

That said, YC funding science is fantastic. Even if it is just 1 company, thus
far. Biotech should be a nice hedge in the portfolio.

~~~
namenotrequired
According to the article, it's one of five biotech startups in this batch.

~~~
mylons
but it's the only one publicly listed in their portfolio at this date.

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refurb
It will be interesting to see what gets funded. Actually getting a drug to
market is a far different beast than get a tech product to market.

However, there are a ton of non-drug biotech plays that one could pursue.
Lower risk and lower capital requirements. I wonder if that is what YC is
looking to fund.

~~~
frisco
Considering that Ginkgo Bioworks is a non-drug biotech company, I'd say that
the answer to your question is yes.

~~~
refurb
We'll have to wait until the other 4 companies debut before confirming that.

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anateus
I remember meeting and hanging out with Jason Kelly in Cambridge (several
times, I think the first one was at a Grey Thumb meetup, an artificial life
themed group), the work on refactoring the T7 bacteriophage really sparked my
interest in bioengineering and got me involved with DIYbio. Soon after Jason
co-founded Ginkgo Bioworks.

Both as an amateur biologist and as a YC alumnus I'm really happy to see
Ginkgo survive and grow. Just as one of the goals of DIYbio are to be to
biotech what the Homebrew Computer Club was to personal computing, Ginko's
systematizing and modularizing of biotech can be the Altair 8080 of life
sciences.

(Edit: well, perhaps targeting truly amateur kit users is early right now, and
it's more about modularizing aspects of biotech, I like the spirit I expressed
in the previous paragraph :>)

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devilsdounut
Biotechs on the level that YC would fund don't have much incentive to ask for
this money. The government has this one covered with the SBIR grants, which
come with very few strings attached. While these are clearly not perfect, they
don't leave too much room for low level investment.

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coreymgilmore
For those wondering about "using designer microbes to convert CO2 emissions
into fuel", take a look at
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel).

Basically the algae takes in CO2 and then the algae itself is turned into
fuel. Another method is where algae takes in CO2 and "exhales" fuel which
removes the need to "kill" the algae. Very cool stuff. On a large enough, and
efficient enough, scale this kind of technology could become highly important.
These methods are somewhat carbon neutral since the CO2 emitted from using the
fuel is recaptured by algae again.

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sanxiyn
Isn't "designer organism" just another word for GMO(Genetically Modified
Organism)? We have seen lots of regulatory troubles regarding GMOs, even for
some of the most clearly beneficial ones.

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hayksaakian
it could also be an organism that was simply invented rather than modified
from an existing one.

~~~
sanxiyn
In theory, yes, but do we even know how to do such a thing?

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vedtopkar
Not yet, but it's one of the most actively pursued questions in modern
biology. Some of the smartest biologists of our time, including Jack Szostak
(2009 Nobel Laureate) and Craig Venter are working on it:
[http://www.economist.com/node/16163006](http://www.economist.com/node/16163006)

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crpatino
Am I the only one for whom the opening scene of "I am Legend" came immediately
to mind?

