Bayer backs a George Church spinout trying to turn lab-invented amino acids into a new class of protein therapies
Six years ago, Daniel Mandell appeared on NPR to talk about an invention out of Jurassic Park.
As Crichton and Goldblum fans recall, International Genetic Technologies, Inc.’s contingency plan to make sure dinosaurs didn’t escape was to take away their ability to make the amino acid lysine, forcing them to rely on lysine supplements from the park staff for survival.
Mandell, a fellow at George Church’s Harvard lab, took the idea a step further. He, Church and a team of scientists engineered a bacteria dependent on an artificial amino acid that didn’t exist anywhere; scientists had invented it.
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