CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Flagship Pioneering
today announced the unveiling of Tessera Therapeutics, Inc. a new
company with the mission of curing disease by writing in the code
of life. Tessera is pioneering Gene Writing™, a new biotechnology
that writes therapeutic messages into the genome to treat diseases
at their source.
Tessera's Gene Writing platform is a potentially revolutionary
breakthrough for genetic medicine that addresses key limitations of
gene therapy and gene editing. Gene Writing technology can alter
the genome by efficiently inserting genes and exons (parts of
genes), introducing small insertions and deletions, or changing
single or multiple DNA base pairs. The technology could enable
cures for diseases that arise from errors in the genome, including
monogenic disorders. It could also allow precise gene regulation
in other diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases,
autoimmune disorders, and metabolic diseases.
"While profound advancements in genetic medicine over the last
two decades had therapeutic promise for many previously untreatable
diseases, the intrinsic properties of existing gene therapy and
editing have significant shortcomings that limit their benefits to
patients," says Noubar Afeyan,
Ph.D., founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and Chairman of
Tessera Therapeutics. "Our scientists have invented a new
technology, called Gene Writing, that has the ability to write
therapeutic messages into the genomes of somatic cells. We created
Tessera to pioneer its applications for medicine. However, the
breakthrough is broad and could be applied to many different
genomes from humans to plants to microorganisms."
A New Era of Genetic Medicine
Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D., an
MIT-trained biological engineer;
Jacob Rubens, Ph.D., an MIT-trained synthetic biologist; and other
scientists at Flagship Labs, the enterprise's innovation foundry,
co-founded Tessera in 2018 to create a platform that could design,
make, and launch Gene Writing medicines. A General Partner at
Flagship Pioneering, von Maltzahn has co-founded numerous
biotechnology companies, including Sana Biotechnology, Indigo
Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences, Seres Therapeutics, and Axcella
Health.
"DNA codes for life. But sometimes our DNA is written
improperly, driving an enormous variety of diseases," says von
Maltzahn, Tessera's Chief Executive Officer. "We started
Tessera Therapeutics with a simple question: 'What if Nature
evolved a better solution than CRISPR for inserting curative
therapeutic messages into the genome?' It turns out that
engineered and synthetic mobile genetic elements offer the
potential to go beyond the limitations of gene editing technologies
and allow Gene Writing. Our outstanding team of scientists is
focused on bringing the vast promise of this new technology
category to patients."
Mobile genetic elements, the inspiration for Gene Writing, are
evolution's greatest genomic architect. The first mobile genetic
element was discovered by Barbara
McClintock, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize for revealing the
mobile nature of genes. Mobile genetic elements code for the
machinery to move or copy themselves into a new location in the
genome, and they have been selected over billions of years to
autonomously and efficiently "write" their DNA into new genomic
sites. Today, mobile genetic elements are among the most abundant
and ubiquitous genes in nature.
Over the past two years, Tessera has been mining genomes to
discover novel mobile genetic elements and engineering them to
create Gene Writing technology. Tessera's Gene Writers write
therapeutic messages into the genome using RNA or DNA templates.
RNA-based Gene Writing uses an RNA template and Gene Writer protein to either write a new gene
into the genome or guide the rewriting of a pre-existing genomic
sequence to make a small substitution, insertion, or deletion.
DNA-based Gene Writing uses a DNA template to write a new gene into
the genome.
By harnessing the biology of mobile genetic elements, Gene
Writing holds the potential to overcome the limitations of current
genetic medicine approaches by:
- Efficiently writing small and large alterations to the genome
of somatic cells with minimal reliance upon host DNA repair
pathways, unlike nuclease-based gene editing technologies.
- Permanently adding new DNA to dividing cells, unlike AAV-based
gene therapy technologies.
- Writing new DNA sequences into the genome by delivering only
RNA.
- Allowing repeated administration of treatments to patients in
order to dose genetic medicines to effect, which is not possible
with current gene therapies.
Tessera has licensed Flagship Pioneering's intellectual property
estate, which was begun in 2018 with seminal patent filings
supporting both RNA and DNA Gene Writing technologies.
Tessera's Scientific Advisory Board includes Luigi Naldini, David
Schaffer, Andrew Scharenberg,
Nancy Craig, George Church, Jonathan
Weissman, and John Moran, who
collectively have decades of experience in developing gene
therapies and gene editing technologies, and also have commercial
expertise from 4D, UniQure, Casebia, Cellectis, Magenta, and
Editas. Tessera's Board of Directors includes John Mendlein, Flagship Executive Partner and
former CEO of multiple companies; Melissa
Moore, Chair of Tessera's Scientific Advisory Board, Chief
Scientific Officer of Moderna, member of the National Academy of
Sciences, and founding co-director of the RNA Therapeutics
Institute; Geoffrey von Maltzahn;
and Noubar Afeyan. The
30-person R&D team at Tessera has deep genetic medicine and
startup expertise, including alumni from Editas, Intellia, Beam,
Casebia, and Moderna.
About Tessera Therapeutics
Tessera Therapeutics is an early-stage life sciences company
pioneering Gene Writing™, a new biotechnology designed to offer
scientists and doctors the ability to write and rewrite small and
large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases
at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new
category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in
gene therapy and gene editing, while eliminating important
limitations in their reach, utilization and efficacy. Tessera
Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences
innovation enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops
first-in-class category companies to transform human health and
sustainability.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops
first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health
and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has applied
a unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and
foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over
$34 billion in aggregate value. To
date, Flagship is backed by more than $4.4
billion of aggregate capital commitments, of which over
$1.9 billion has been deployed toward
the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more
than $10 billion of follow-on
investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem
comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health
(NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo
Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics, Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences
(NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius
Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology, Seres
Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Syros Pharmaceuticals
(NASDAQ: SYRS).
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SOURCE Flagship Pioneering