A-Alpha Bio Awarded Additional $14.5M from the Department of Defense to Accelerate Antibody Discovery and Optimization for Likely Biothreats
May 21 2024 - 8:00AM
A-Alpha Bio, a biotechnology company harnessing synthetic biology
and machine learning to measure, predict, and engineer
protein-protein interactions,
today
announced $14.5M in additional funding from the Department of
Defense (DOD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical,
Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense’s (JPEO-CBRND's)
Generative Unconstrained Intelligent Drug Engineering (GUIDE)
program to further expand its partnership with Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory (LLNL), a federally funded research and
development center.
A-Alpha's partnership with LLNL began with $1M in funding in
2022 and was expanded in 2023 with an additional $2.4M, with
funding provided by JPEO-CBRND GUIDE. This collaboration is aimed
to preemptively generate data and train computational models that
enable rapid medical countermeasures against potential future
biothreats. The additional support will fund A-Alpha Bio’s
generation of large-scale antibody-antigen binding datasets and
enable training and validation of predictive computational models
for multiple undisclosed pathogen families of concern.
GUIDE’s mission is to leverage integrated computational and
experimental capabilities to accelerate drug development by
harnessing the power of advanced simulation and machine learning.
The program was established in response to the devastating effects
of the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the critical need for
rapid medical countermeasures against novel biothreats. Since
predicting the next specific biothreat is not possible, the DOD
focuses on developing capabilities that will enable rapid response
to any emerging challenge. Core to the program’s success is the
ability to quickly and iteratively generate large-scale
experimental data to train and validate predictive computational
models. A-Alpha Bio was tapped to generate large-scale
antibody-antigen binding data and enable the training and
validation of predictive machine learning models.
Over the past two years, A-Alpha and LLNL have demonstrated the
success of their approach, first with coronaviruses and then with
other select pathogen families of concern. Using its AlphaSeq
platform, A-Alpha Bio experimentally measures millions of
protein-protein interactions between thousands of pathogen variants
and a diverse panel of antibody sequences. These multidimensional
binding data are then integrated with LLNL’s high-performance
computing. To date, nearly 10 million quantitative antibody-antigen
binding affinities have been measured with AlphaSeq across three
pathogen families and these data have enabled significant
improvements in the accuracy of affinity-predicting machine
learning models. Further, AlphaSeq data has been used to identify
stabilized antigen variants and remove a significant obstacle to
GUIDE’s success. These accomplishments over the past two years have
prompted the additional funding to A-Alpha Bio.
“The past two years of collaboration with LLNL on the GUIDE
program have seen remarkable success in training predictive machine
learning models with high-throughput antibody-antigen binding data,
and we are excited to expand our partnership with additional
JPEO-CBRND support,” said Randolph Lopez, Ph.D. Chief Technical
Officer at A-Alpha Bio. “There is an enormous need for biothreat
preparedness, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but success
here points to far broader drug discovery applications that will be
enabled by high-throughput experimentation and machine learning,
and we are excited to be at the center of these efforts.”
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About A-Alpha Bio
A-Alpha Bio is a biotechnology company harnessing synthetic
biology and machine learning to measure, predict, and engineer
protein-protein interactions.
Our experimental platform, AlphaSeq, enables the rapid and
quantitative measurement of millions of protein-protein binding
affinities simultaneously. Our computational platform, AlphaBind,
is trained on the world’s largest protein-protein interaction
database and predicts binding strength from sequence. A-Alpha Bio
leverages AlphaSeq and AlphaBind for in-house therapeutic programs
and in partnership with leading pharmaceutical companies to inform
the discovery and development of novel therapeutics.
A-Alpha Bio is based in Seattle and was founded in 2017 at the
University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design and Center
for Synthetic Biology.
To learn more, please
visit: https://www.aalphabio.com/
About the JPEO-CBRND
The Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological,
Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) mission is to provide
integrated layered chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear
defense capabilities to the Joint Force across combined Joint
All-Domain Operations. JPEO-CBRND's goal is to enable the Joint
Force to fight and win unencumbered by a CBRN environment. This
contract was funded by the Joint Project Lead for CBRND Enabling
Biotechnologies (JPL CBRND EB) in collaboration with the Department
of Energy (DOE) under agreement # A2210-021-089-033253.
The GUIDE program is executed by the Joint Program Executive
Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense
(JPEO-CBRND) Joint Project Lead for Enabling Biotechnologies (JPL
CBRND EB) on behalf of the Department of Defense’s Chemical and
Biological Defense Program.
The views expressed in this press release reflect the views of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the
Department of the Army, Department of Defense, nor the United
States Government. References to non-federal entities do not
constitute or imply Department of Defense or Army endorsement of
any company, product, or organization.
To learn more about JPEO-CBRND,
visit: https://www.jpeocbrnd.osd.mil/, or
follow JPEO-CBRND on social media @JPEOCBRND.
About Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory provides solutions to our nation's most important
national security challenges through innovative science,
engineering, and technology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
is managed by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC for the
U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
Administration.
Cameron Gordon
A-Alpha Bio
410-504-9380
cameron@jones-dilworth.com