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IMAGE: Liu and his lab engineered botulinum toxin to target new proteins, a critical advance that could lead to new treatments for a range of maladies, including nerve and brain damage,. view more
Credit: Casey Atkins Photography, courtesy of Broad Institute
When people hear botulinum toxin, they often think one of two things: a cosmetic that makes frown lines disappear or a deadly poison.
But the miracle poison, as it s also known, has been approved by the F.D.A. to treat a suite of maladies like chronic migraines, uncontrolled blinking, and certain muscle spasms. And now, a team of researchers from Harvard University and the Broad Institute have, for the first time, proved they could rapidly evolve the toxin in the laboratory to target a variety of different proteins, creating a suite of bespoke, super-selective proteins called proteases with the potential to aid in neuroregeneration, regulate growth hormones, calm rampant inflammation, or dampen the life-
Tech giants are taking on China s looming food crisis theage.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theage.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Feb 23, 2021 10:15am GuideTx’s LNP screening technology tags nanoparticles with DNA barcodes, which allows hundreds of nanoparticles to be screened in one experiment, in a single animal. (Beam Therapeutics)
Not all gene editing treatments are created equal that’s why Beam Therapeutics started out with multiple technologies from the likes of MIT, Harvard University, the Broad Institute and Editas Medicine. Now, it’s adding another arrow to its drug delivery quiver with its $120 million acquisition of GuideTx, a Georgia Tech spinout.
The all-stock deal will see Beam fork over $120 million upfront, but GuideTx shareholders could yield up to $320 million more in milestone payments. Beam is betting that adding GuideTx’s lipid nanoparticle (LNP) drug delivery vehicles to the mix will boost the reach of its genetic medicines into new tissues and disease areas.
Dive Brief:
High-profile gene editing startup Beam Therapeutics has acquired Guide Therapeutics, a developer of tools used to deliver genetic medicines into cells, in a $120 million all-stock deal that capitalizes on the recent run-up of Beam s share price.
The acquisition, which Beam completed on Tuesday, centers on technology Guide has developed to more efficiently shuttle gene editing therapies to target tissues inside the body. Guide investors could receive as much as $320 million more in Beam stock should its technology succeed and hit certain unspecified milestones.
Launched in May 2018, Beam is working on more precise forms of gene editing developed by Harvard University s David Liu and by Feng Zhang, a CRISPR pioneer and member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Shares in the company have soared since October, boosting its valuation to more than $5 billion.