Mammoth Biosciences is a

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

company based in

Brisbane, California Brisbane (pron. , unlike Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) is a small city located in California in the northern part of San Mateo County on the lower slopes of San Bruno Mountain. It is located on the southern border of San Francisco, on the ...

developing

diagnostic Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of a certain phenomenon. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines, with variations in the use of logic, analytics, and experience, to determine " cause and effect". In systems engine ...

tests using

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacte ...

Cas12a Cas12a (CRISPR associated protein 12a, previously known as Cpf1) is an RNA-guided endonuclease of that forms part of the CRISPR system in some bacteria and is used by scientists to modify DNA. It originates as part of a bacterial immune mechan ...

and CRISPR-based therapies using its proprietary ultra-small CRISPR systems. Several CRISPR-Cas systems identified through the company's

metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...

-based protein discovery platform, including members of the Casφ and Cas14 families of CRISPR-associated enzymes, have demonstrated potential for therapeutic

genome editing Genome editing, or genome engineering, or gene editing, is a type of genetic engineering in which DNA is inserted, deleted, modified or replaced in the genome of a living organism. Unlike early genetic engineering techniques that randomly inserts ...

in ''

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and ...

'' settings.

History

The company was founded in 2017 by

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...

Janice Chen Janice Chen is co-founder and chief technology officer of Mammoth Biosciences, a Brisbane, California-based company that is developing diagnostic tests using CRISPR. She received her B.S. degree from Johns Hopkins University and as a graduate stu ...

, and Lucas Harrington of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, and Trevor Martin of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Mammoth signed agreements in December 2019 and January 2020 with Horizon Discovery to combine Mammoth's intellectual property in CRISPR with Horizon's expertise in

Chinese hamster ovary cell Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are an epithelial cell line derived from the ovary of the Chinese hamster, often used in biological and medical research and commercially in the production of recombinant therapeutic proteins. They have foun ...

s. Also in 2020, both Mammoth Biosciences and

Sherlock Biosciences Sherlock Biosciences is a biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts developing diagnostic tests using CRISPR-Cas13. The company was founded in 2019 by Feng Zhang, Jim Collins, Omar Abudayyeh, and Jonathan Gootenberg of the Broad Inst ...

from the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U ...

used their similar CRISPR technologies to develop tests for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The technology, which is owned under the trademark of DETECTR BOOST, has been contracted to be manufactured by Merck & Co. In 2023, the company announced that it will focus on developing CRISPR-based therapies. The company's platform uses "ultra-small" Cas enzymes, such as CasΦ and Cas14, which measure down to a third or less the size of

Cas9 Cas9 (CRISPR associated protein 9, formerly called Cas5, Csn1, or Csx12) is a 160 kilodalton protein which plays a vital role in the immunological defense of certain bacteria against DNA viruses and plasmids, and is heavily utilized in genetic e ...

, and which could allow for easier delivery ''in vivo'' through commonly used non-viral and viral delivery mechanisms, including

adeno-associated virus Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are small viruses that infect humans and some other primate species. They belong to the genus ''Dependoparvovirus'', which in turn belongs to the family ''Parvoviridae''. They are small (approximately 26 nm in di ...

vectors. Compared to Cas9, CasΦ and Cas14 may also offer less restrictive

protospacer adjacent motif A protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) is a 2–6-base pair DNA sequence immediately following the DNA sequence targeted by the Cas9 nuclease in the CRISPR bacterial adaptive immune system. The PAM is a component of the invading virus or plasmid, but ...

requirements, advantageous

off-target activity Off-target activity is biological activity of a drug that is different from and not at that of its intended biological target. It most commonly contributes to side effects. However, in some cases, off-target activity can be taken advantage of for ...

, and allele-specific editing capabilities, which could broaden the range of targetable diseases in the

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...

. Mammoth previously announced partnerships with

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Vertex Pharmaceuticals is an American biopharmaceutical company based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was one of the first biotech firms to use an explicit strategy of rational drug design rather than combinatorial chemistry. It maintains headqua ...

(2021) and

Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...

(2022) to research ultra-small CRISPR systems for ''in vivo'' editing.

Related Works

* Lucas B. Harrington et al. ,Programmed DNA destruction by miniature CRISPR-Cas14 enzymes. Science362,839-842(2018). * Broughton, J.P., Deng, X., Yu, G. et al. CRISPR–Cas12-based detection of SARS-CoV-2. Nat Biotechnol 38, 870–874 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-0513-4 * Patrick Pausch et al. ,CRISPR-CasΦ from huge phages is a hypercompact genome editor. Science369,333-337(2020).

References

American companies established in 2017 Biotechnology companies of the United States Health care companies based in California Jennifer Doudna Life sciences industry Medical diagnosis Genomics companies Companies based in San Mateo County, California {{Company-stub

History

Related Works

See also

References