A startup to serially turn skin cells into any other cells has hit the market
GC Therapeutics has entered the market to develop a commercially available platform that allows for affordable programming of induced stem cells. According to the company's press release, such programming can be used to generate various cell cultures for therapeutic applications.
The most versatile way to obtain different cell types for therapeutic applications is reprogramming induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) with specific transcription factors. The technology of their production from skin fibroblasts was developed by Japanese biologist and Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka, who used transcription factors Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and c-Myc (called Yamanaka factors), now other methods are also known. The pluripotency of these cells makes it possible to direct their development and differentiation into various specified cell types in the body, which requires activating the appropriate transcription factors in them at specific times.
In 2019, renowned biologist George Church (George Church) from Harvard University and colleagues took advantage of previous and their own findings on this topic and founded the startup GC Therapeutics (GCTx). In the course of its work, the team assembled the first complete library of human transcription factors, containing 1564 genes and 1732 isoforms of their products resulting from alternative splicing. Its data are used in the TFome platform developed by GCTx (TF is an acronym for transcription factors and the suffix ‘-om’ to signify their totality; read ‘tiephome’). Through multivariate screening involving genome-wide experimental validation and machine learning algorithms, this platform finds fully optimised combinations of transcription factors and uses genome editing systems and cell engineering to use them to differentiate iPSCs into virtually any functional cell type.
According to a company statement, TFome enables the process of differentiating iPSCs into target cells with an efficiency of more than 90 per cent in a single step lasting four days. No cell type-specific microenvironment optimisation is required. The technology overcomes the natural limitations of the differentiation process and is easily scalable. As a result, cell therapy products are produced approximately one hundred times faster than conventional methods, with better efficacy, quality and cost. The co-founders of GCTx compare this approach to plug-and-play technology.
In addition, TFome can be used to grow cells with defined, non-native features and functions to target specific diseases. To start, GCTx plans to focus on cell therapy for gastrointestinal, neurological and immunological disorders.