A biotech startup called Prolific Machines believes that it can help cut manufacturing costs with carefully choreographed light shows that coax cells to keep pumping out drugs. And now it’s got backing from one of the biggest public health funders to prove it.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving the Emeryville, CA-based company a $2 million grant to figure out how to make monoclonal antibodies for infectious disease affordable for low- and middle-income countries, the startup told Endpoints News exclusively.
Biologic drugs, including antibodies and other proteins produced from vats of living cells, are expensive to manufacture, with some estimates around $100 to $200 per gram. Prolific is aiming to lower costs to $10 per gram.
Deniz Kent
The startup’s idea is a twist on optogenetics techniques that have swept neuroscience labs over the past decade. Light-sensitive ion channels borrowed from algae and genetically implanted in neurons have
