Fresh off its MassChallenge win, MIT spinoff SQZBiotech is taking its tech to new heights. Namely, it’s partnered with NASA and will be studying its “cell-squeezing” process at the International Space Station, learning how to better insert transformative materials into cells in a microgravity environment.
The startup has developed a slick, vector-free method of introducing material into cells – squeezing them through high-pressure tubes on microfluidic chips. This loosens cell membrane pores so they’ll be more receptive to additives like proteins, nanomaterials, RNA and DNA. With this sort of procedure, it’s far easier to transform, say, a skin cell into an IPS cell.
The higher the pressure, the larger the material that can be squeezed into the cell – but the more likely it is to kill the cell in the process. While SQZBiotech’s been recognized in academia as a superior method to stuff stuff into cells than, say, electroporation, there’s still room for improvement. Plenty of room, since they think that answer’s in space.
With the Rise of AI, What IP Disputes in Healthcare Are Likely to Emerge?
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
SQZBiotech, founded in 2013, was one of four startups to win $100K in MassChallenge’s prestigious 2014 competition – and nabbed another $200K from Boeing and the Center for Advancement of Science in Space. The reason this cell-squeezing could work while in orbit is that the lack of gravitational pull makes cells much less rigid – potentially allowing more cells to stay alive during the squeezing process, said Harrison Bralower, VP of SQZBiotech engineering.
“We know that if you culture cells in microgravity, they tend to stick together and make larger and larger clumps,” Bralower said. “It’s a good environment for regenerative medicine in general.”
If the findings in microgravity prove fruitful, the company could mimic its processes on Earth with devices like rotating wall vessels, he said. But that’s a ways away: SQZBiotech has to ready its technology so it can be carried out by the researchers-cum-astronauts on the International Space Station – a process that will likely take about two years.
“Then we’ll squeeze cells in space,” Bralower said.
A Personalized Approach to Medication Nonadherence
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
The startup has raised about $1.15 million to date from grants and angel investment. It’s already selling its cell-squeezing tech to Bostonian academia, and has “partnered with five companies already – a few big, publicly traded ones and a few smaller ones,” CEO Agustin Lopez Marquez said. Drug companies are interested, after all, in screening a larger molecule drug’s efficacy inside a cell. The high throughput screening market’s about $14 billion, he said.
“We’ve been getting a lot of interest from the bigger pharmas and biotechs to use our system so they can understand their drugs better,” he said.
The company’s game plan is to license out the technology to the Pfizers of the world to help hasten the drug discovery process – but it wants to expand the company from within as well. It holds an exclusive license from MIT for the technology, and thinks some of the most immediate revenues will come from further selling its transfection tech to the research set – helping them better introduce nucleic acids into cells.
“I think we can expect to grow that market beyond the current $650 million,” Founder Armon Sharei said.
The startup’s longer-term strategy will be to work with patient-derived cells, and engineer, say, a person’s own immune cells to fight disease for them.
“We can take immune cells out of blood, treat them with one of our devices to train it against cancer, then go back and fight the cancer with efficacy,” Sharei said. “But because of the way our system works, we think we can go beyond cancer, fighting HIV or even Ebola – these infectious disease areas may be within our reach.”
