Precision Medicine Meets Single-Cell DNA Analysis With Mission Bio
October 17 2017 - 5:00AM
Business Wire
Company closes Series A and launches Tapestri™
to accelerate the discovery, development and delivery of precision
medicine.
Mission Bio, Inc., a pioneer in single-cell DNA analysis, today
announced it has secured $10 million in Series A funding. Silicon
Valley venture capital firm Mayfield Fund led the round. The
financing supports the launch of the Tapestri platform, a precision
genomics platform to support the discovery, development and
delivery of precision medicine. The Tapestri platform leverages
proprietary droplet microfluidics to provide unmatched single-cell
DNA analysis and throughput, enabling detection of genomic
variability within and across cell populations. The platform
includes an instrument, consumables and software, and is being
showcased at the 2017 American Society for Human Genetics Annual
Meeting (ASHG 2017). The company and early access customers from MD
Anderson Cancer Center and Stanford University School of Medicine
will be presenting at the meeting.
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Tapestri from Mission Bio is a precision
genomics platform to support the discovery, development and
delivery of precision medicine. The Tapestri platform leverages
proprietary droplet microfluidics to provide unmatched single-cell
DNA analysis and throughput, enabling detection of genomic
variability within and across cell populations. (Photo: Business
Wire)
"We are excited to partner with Charlie, Adam and the Mission
Bio team. We believe their technology and expertise will play a
transformative role in delivering on the promise of precision
medicine," said Ursheet Parikh of Mayfield Fund. “With their unique
approach combining precision engineering with cutting-edge
biochemistry, we see the opportunity to greatly impact the
economics and success of the development and clinical use of
precision therapies.”
Mission Bio addresses the shortcomings of current technologies
with the Tapestri platform, a scalable, highly sensitive and
customizable precision genomics platform. With throughput up to
10,000 cells and DNA accessibility at the single-cell level,
researchers and clinicians can now identify with unprecedented
scale and sensitivity the important differences among cells within
a patient sample that may impact disease progression and
treatment.
“Delivering the right medicine to every diseased cell in a
patient requires an understanding of the complex cell-to-cell
variations that drive disease,” said Charlie Silver, CEO of Mission
Bio. “We believe that Tapestri’s novel capability for scalable
single-cell DNA analysis will enable the development and delivery
of precision medicine based on the unique genomic profile of each
patient. With Mayfield’s track record of supporting next-generation
technology to lead industry trends, we feel uniquely positioned to
build a company that will help move precision medicine
forward.”
The conventional approach to measuring cellular mutations and
heterogeneity for complex disease is bulk sequencing based on an
average readout of mutations across cell populations. But averages
miss the underlying genetic diversity within samples, including
co-occurrence and mutational patterns at the single-cell level. To
better understand and treat complex diseases like cancer,
researchers need to be able to discover the true diversity that
exists from cell to cell, or between groups of cells within a
patient sample.
Mission Bio’s first application in acute myeloid leukemia (AML),
shipping in December 2017, has already demonstrated the potential
to apply this novel technology to gain clinically relevant insights
with early access customers.
“In studying leukemias, we are excited about now having the
ability to genotype multiple mutations at single-cell resolution in
this level of high throughput,” said Koichi Takahashi, M.D.,
Assistant Professor, MD Anderson Cancer Center. “Otherwise, the
average readout from bulk sequencing misses these important
insights in cellular heterogeneity. This new capability of
single-cell analysis is critical to better understanding precision
therapy selection at diagnosis as well as disease monitoring and
subsequent treatment strategy.”
With the Series A investment and launch of the Tapestri
platform, Mission Bio also begins its Custom Panel Grant Program
which will provide researchers a grant to build a custom panel on
the Tapestri platform and collaborate with Mission Bio for
single-cell mutational profiling. The grant program will remain
open until December 31, 2017, and two winners will be announced in
January 2018. The company will begin accepting custom panel orders
in the first half of 2018.
Mission Bio’s precision genomics platform is based on the work
Adam Abate, Ph.D., from the University of California, San Francisco
(UCSF). Abate has received global recognition for his research and
was the only recipient of a grant from the Chan-Zuckerberg
Foundation for single-cell research. Mission Bio has secured grants
from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. National
Science Foundation (NSF) and was the winner of the QB3@953 Amgen
Golden Ticket Award and CYTO Innovation Award in 2016. In addition
to Mayfield, other investors include Life Science Angels,
Stanford-StartX Fund, Tech Coast Angels and Keiretsu Forum.
Mission Bio is debuting the Tapestri platform at ASHG 2017,
being held this week at the Orange County Convention Center, South
Building, in Orlando, Fla. The company booth location is #1045 and
Tapestri will be featured in a poster presentation by Mission Bio
Chief Scientific Officer, Dennis Eastburn, on Wednesday, October
18. Mission Bio will also host a workshop on October 20 at 1:00
p.m. at the Hilton Hotel, Lake Highland Room, Lobby Level,
featuring data from Tapestri early adopters Koichi Takahashi, M.D.,
from MD Anderson Cancer Center and Liwen Xu, Ph.D., from Stanford
University School of Medicine. Images and video with more details
on Mission Bio and the Tapestri platform are available on the
company’s website.
About Mission Bio, Inc.
The Mission Bio Tapestri platform provides researchers a
precision genomics platform to support the discovery, development
and delivery of precision medicine. Our proprietary droplet
microfluidics platform enables scalable detection of genomic
variability with access to DNA at the single-cell level. The
Tapestri platform includes our instrument, consumables and
software, which plug seamlessly into existing NGS workflows. With
Mission Bio, researchers have a highly sensitive and customizable
solution that is fully supported to enable meaningful discoveries.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171017005084/en/
for Mission BioAndrea Vuturo,
415-689-8414andrea@vuturo.comorMission BioRebecca Galler,
303-887-7658Senior Vice President,
Marketinggaller@missionbio.com