A pair of for­mer MIT re­searchers think they've un­locked the next gen­er­a­tion of mR­NA us­ing syn­bio 'log­ic cir­cuit­s'

The time of mR­NA is in full swing as Mod­er­na and Pfiz­er/BioN­Tech have blown the doors off the field. But in drug de­vel­op­ers’ eyes, cur­rent-gen mR­NA vac­cines are just an ap­pe­tiz­er to the full course of ther­a­peu­tics fur­ther down the menu — at least that’s what two for­mer MIT re­searchers with syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy roots are gam­bling on.

Strand Ther­a­peu­tics emerged from stealth Wednes­day with a $52 mil­lion Se­ries A to ad­vance its pipeline of pro­gram­ma­ble, self am­pli­fy­ing mR­NA ther­a­pies ini­tial­ly tar­get­ed at sol­id tu­mor im­muno-on­col­o­gy, the biotech said.

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