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Serotiny | March 01, 2022

Serotiny, a leader in high-throughput therapeutic Multi-Domain Protein engineering, and Tessera Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering a new approach in genetic medicines known as Gene Writing technology, today announced a collaboration to engineer programmable Gene Writer proteins. This collaboration will build on Tessera’s innovations in genome engineering technologies and apply Serotiny’s tMDP mining and design expertise to further optimize Tessera’s programmable Gene Writer proteins, capable of making diverse and directed alterations to the genome. “We’re extremely excited to be working with the Tessera team. It provides Serotiny a unique opportunity to extend the validation of our platform and to continue to advance our efforts in discovering and developing proteins with novel function for the purpose of enhancing the therapeutic utility of next-generation genetic medicines.” Colin Farlow, J.D., Serotiny’s CEO Tessera’s Gene Writer candidates can allow the substitution, insertion, or deletion of DNA sequences, as well as the writing of entire genes into the genome, offering the potential for a new category of genetic medicines. By partnering with Serotiny, Tessera will have the ability to identify, screen, and optimize a variety of proteins that can serve as the foundation of future Gene Writer therapies across a variety of disease states. “Tessera’s mission is to cure disease by writing in the code of life and we’re committed to continuously innovating to improve and expand our Gene Writing platform,” said Geoffrey von Maltzahn, PhD, co-founder and CEO of Tessera. “Our R&D engine seeks to learn from billions of years of mobile genetic element evolution to generate novel Gene Writing systems with the ability to solve important challenges in genetic medicine. Serotiny’s multi-domain engineering expertise has the potential to further optimize our Gene Writer protein libraries and we’re delighted to partner with the Serotiny team.” Under terms of the agreement Serotiny will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for certain future consideration, contingent upon the collaboration achieving pre-specified performance thresholds. About Serotiny Serotiny is a pre-clinical discovery company building better gene and cell therapies through high-throughput engineering of therapeutic Multi-Domain Proteins (tMDP) such as Chimeric Antigen Receptors (CARs), CAR alternatives, accessory proteins, and next generation gene editors. At the heart of Serotiny’s technology is a discovery platform that harmonizes computationally aided protein design, high-throughput cellular assays, and next generation sequencing. Serotiny’s platform enables a cross disciplinary approach to engineering large and often unstructured multi-domain proteins, applying expertise from synthetic biology, immunology, machine learning, software engineering and bioinformatics. About Tessera’s Gene Writer platform Tessera’s Gene Writer proteins are based on nature’s genome architects, Mobile Genetic Elements (MGEs)—the most abundant class of genes across the tree of life, representing approximately half of the human genome. Tessera has evaluated tens of thousands of natural and synthetic MGEs to create Gene Writer candidates in multiple categories including RNA Gene Writer proteins that use target-primed reverse transcription (TPRT), which evolved in a class of MGEs known as retrotransposons. TPRT uses three steps to make an alteration: DNA-binding, DNA-nicking (without double strand breaks to DNA), and reverse transcription. Tessera’s Gene Writing technology requires a DNA sequence match at all three steps, reducing the likelihood of off-target editing. Tessera’s Gene Writer components can be delivered as therapeutic compositions comprised of RNA molecules within lipid nanoparticles, offering the potential for scalable, re-dosable genetic medicines with the ability to make the full spectrum of small and large edits to genome, from single or multi-base pair corrections, insertions, deletions, to writing entire genes. DNA Gene Writer proteins are derived from recombinases and integrases and enable permanent integration of whole-gene sequences, delivered as DNA, into the genome without the introduction of double-strand breaks. This opens up the potential for treating pediatric patients leveraging validated delivery modalities Tessera’s research engine further optimizes the discovered Gene Writer candidates for efficiency, specificity, and fidelity—essentially compressing eons of evolution into a few months. About Tessera Therapeutics Tessera Therapeutics is pioneering Gene Writing technology, which consists of multiple technology platforms designed to offer scientists and clinicians the ability to write therapeutic messages into the human genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. The Gene Writing platform allows the correction of single nucleotides, the deletion or insertion of short sequences of DNA, and the writing of entire genes into the genome, offering the potential for a new category of genetic medicines with broad applications both in vivo and ex vivo. Tessera Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops first-in-category bioplatform companies to transform human health and sustainability.

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