Constructive.Bio

Constructive Bio Secures $58 Million in Series A Financing

Constructive Bio joins NVIDIA Inception, accelerating its work writing genomes from scratch and creating programmable biomolecules

Biomachines Beyond Nature: How Can We Make Molecules Precisely Tailored to Our Needs?

Dr Ola Wlodek has been invited to present at SynBioBeta

Constructive Bio have been selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP) focused on San Jose, California USA.

Constructive Bio selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP).

Leading experts in health, law, risk management and marketing have today (Tuesday 23 April) been appointed to oversee the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s (DSIT) work to transform the UK into a science and technology superpower, bolstering the DSIT board with a series of key leadership figures.  

Constructive Bio CSO and founder, Professor Jason Chin, reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Departmental Board at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Noncanonical Amino Acids Inspire the Development of Novel Drugs

Nature uses 64 codons to encode the synthesis of proteins from the genome, and chooses 1 sense codon—out of up to 6 synonyms—to encode each amino acid. Synonymous codon choice has diverse and important roles, and many synonymous substitutions are detrimental. Here we demonstrate that the number of codons used to encode the canonical amino acids can be reduced, through the genome-wide substitution of target codons by defined synonyms. We create a variant of Escherichia coli with a four-megabase synthetic genome through a high-fidelity convergent total synthesis. Our synthetic genome implements a defined recoding and refactoring scheme—with simple corrections at just seven positions—to replace every known occurrence of two sense codons and a stop codon in the genome. Thus, we recode 18,214 codons to create an organism with a 61-codon genome; this organism uses 59 codons to encode the 20 amino acids, and enables the deletion of a previously essential transfer RNA.

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome

Cambridge start-up aims to rewrite the code of life

Constructive Bio scales to new Cambridge headquarters

Constructive Bio’s showcase HQ at The Recodery is formally opened 

Continuous synthesis of E. coli genome sections and Mb-scale human DNA assembly 

It is widely hypothesized that removing cellular transfer RNAs (tRNAs)—making their
cognate codons unreadable—might create a genetic firewall to viral infection and enable sense codon reassignment. However, it has been impossible to test these hypotheses. In this work, following synonymous codon compression and laboratory evolution in Escherichia coli,
we deleted the tRNAs and release factor 1, which normally decode two sense codons and
a stop codon; the resulting cells could not read the canonical genetic code and were completely resistant to a cocktail of viruses. We reassigned these codons to enable the efficient synthesis of proteins containing three distinct noncanonical amino acids. Notably, we demonstrate the facile reprogramming of our cells for the encoded translation of diverse noncanonical heteropolymers and macrocycles.

Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis

Refactored genetic codes enable bidirectional genetic isolation

The encoded biosynthesis of proteins provides the ultimate paradigm for high-fidelity synthesis of long polymers of defined sequence and composition, but it is limited to polymerizing the canonical amino acids. Recent advances have built on genetic code expansion — which commonly permits the cellular incorporation of one type of non-canonical amino acid into a protein — to enable the encoded incorporation of several distinct non-canonical amino acids. Developments include strategies to read quadruplet codons, use non-natural DNA base pairs, synthesize completely recoded genomes and create orthogonal translational components with reprogrammed specificities. These advances may enable the genetically encoded synthesis of non-canonical biopolymers and provide a platform for transforming the discovery and evolution of new materials and therapeutics.

Highlights[ 7 ]

Constructive Bio Secures $58 Million in Series A Financing

Constructive Bio joins NVIDIA Inception, accelerating its work writing genomes from scratch and creating programmable biomolecules

Dr Ola Wlodek has been invited to present at SynBioBeta

Constructive Bio selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP).

Constructive Bio CSO and founder, Professor Jason Chin, reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Departmental Board at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Noncanonical Amino Acids Inspire the Development of Novel Drugs

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome

News[ 9 ]

Constructive Bio joins NVIDIA Inception, accelerating its work writing genomes from scratch and creating programmable biomolecules

Cambridge start-up aims to rewrite the code of life

Dr Ola Wlodek has been invited to present at SynBioBeta

Constructive Bio Secures $58 Million in Series A Financing

Constructive Bio CSO and founder, Professor Jason Chin, reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Departmental Board at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Noncanonical Amino Acids Inspire the Development of Novel Drugs

Constructive Bio scales to new Cambridge headquarters

Constructive Bio’s showcase HQ at The Recodery is formally opened

Constructive Bio selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP).

Scientific Publications[ 5 ]

Continuous synthesis of E. coli genome sections and Mb-scale human DNA assembly

Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis

Refactored genetic codes enable bidirectional genetic isolation

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome

Reprogramming the genetic code

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Highlights[ 7 ]

Constructive Bio Secures $58 Million in Series A Financing

Constructive Bio joins NVIDIA Inception, accelerating its work writing genomes from scratch and creating programmable biomolecules

Dr Ola Wlodek has been invited to present at SynBioBeta

Constructive Bio selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP).

Constructive Bio CSO and founder, Professor Jason Chin, reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Departmental Board at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Noncanonical Amino Acids Inspire the Development of Novel Drugs

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome

News[ 9 ]

Constructive Bio joins NVIDIA Inception, accelerating its work writing genomes from scratch and creating programmable biomolecules

Cambridge start-up aims to rewrite the code of life

Dr Ola Wlodek has been invited to present at SynBioBeta

Constructive Bio Secures $58 Million in Series A Financing

Constructive Bio CSO and founder, Professor Jason Chin, reappointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Departmental Board at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Noncanonical Amino Acids Inspire the Development of Novel Drugs

Constructive Bio scales to new Cambridge headquarters

Constructive Bio’s showcase HQ at The Recodery is formally opened

Constructive Bio selected for the Innovate UK Engineering Biology and Industrial Biotechnology Global Business Innovation Programme (GBIP).

Scientific Publications[ 5 ]

Continuous synthesis of E. coli genome sections and Mb-scale human DNA assembly

Sense codon reassignment enables viral resistance and encoded polymer synthesis

Refactored genetic codes enable bidirectional genetic isolation

Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome

Reprogramming the genetic code

Unlock the future! Join our newsletter for groundbreaking updates of Constructive.Bio

Sign up forOurNewsletter

Sign up for
OurNewsletter