It’s always fun to see startups with cool ideas in the regenerative medicine space and a new one called GC Therapeutics got some nice coverage this week.
What do you think the name of this firm stands for? I have one main idea I mention below.
Before we jump into it, I want to introduce a new feature I’m including in our weekly reads which is our stem cell blast from the past. At the bottom I link to an old post, often 10-14 years old, that resonates today or is just funny to read now. Things have changed a lot.
What is GC Therapeutics and what is it doing with stem cells?
Stem cell startup spun out of George Church’s lab raises $75M, EndPoints. My first thought was perhaps GC stands for George Church. Maybe it refers to the GC pair in DNA? Gene and Cells?
The idea behind GC Therapeutics is to speed up the production of useful cell therapies derived from stem cells, specifically iPS cells. To do this they are deciphering transcription factor combos that can drive a certain cell identity. Is this more differentiation in a different way or direct reprogramming, sometimes called transdifferentiation? The company sounds intriguing but it’s a tough area to push to the clinic. Here’s the main paper from the biotech: A comprehensive library of human transcription factors for cell fate engineering. That was in 2020, which is somehow already four years ago. I hope they publish more soon as I’m curious if they have specific sets of transcription factors for direct reprogramming to defined fates.
The Boston Globe reports that the company is using Church’s stem cells for some of what they are doing. Unfortunately, I don’t have a subscription. Does anyone else have access to get the details? Church’s iPS cells? Here’s the GC Therapeutics mission statement: “GC Therapeutics (GCTx) is harnessing the world’s first “plug-and-play” induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) cellular programming platform, TFome™ (Transcription-Factor-ome, pronounced as tee-eff-ome), to overcome the development and scaling complexities associated with cell therapy and improve patient access across a broad range of therapeutic areas.”
More reads
- Guest opinion: How should we pay for new breakthrough cures? San Francisco Business Times. Stem cell biologist Deepak Srivastava wrote this piece. The issue of cost is a big one in the regenerative medicine area. New gene editing-based therapies such as for sickle cell disease can cost two-to-three million or more. I expect a few cell therapies to be FDA-approved in the next 10 years. They are likely to be quite expensive as well. We need to start thinking about solutions to the cost issue now. CIRM is giving a lot of attention to cost as well.
- First Day of a ‘New Life’ for a Boy With Sickle Cell, NYT. Speaking of cost, this quote in this article on sickle cell is striking: “The hospital, he says, has to buy the treatment for $2.2 million per patient from Vertex or $3.1 million from Bluebird.”
- RxCell Inc. Granted U.S. Patent for iPSC-based Cell Therapy. This is related to generating different cell types from iPS cells.
- Doctors cured her sickle-cell disease. So why is she still in pain? Nature. Subtitle: Gene and cell therapies bring fresh hope to people with genetic disorders, but recovery can be complex and long-term support remains sparse. This cure was through blood stem cell transplantation.
- Not ready for a knee replacement? You might be able to fix your cartilage instead, WaPo. I usually think “Uh oh” when I see this kind of headline because it often points to a story on unproven, non-FDA-approved injections. However, that’s not the case here. It’s an interesting piece about a coral-based product called Agili-C with an indirect link to stem cells, which migrate in from the patient’s tissues. The story focuses on a patient who is a nurse here at UC Davis Medical Center.
Stem cell blast from the past
About 14 years ago (damn!) I wrote this post: Advice for new PIs part I: start before you start. The advice seems pretty solid overall even now in 2024. What do you think?
I included the picture from that post, which was of my empty lab when I arrived at UC Davis in 2006.