George Church backs a start­up so­lu­tion to the mas­sive gene ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing bot­tle­neck

George Church and his grad­u­ate stu­dents have spent the last decade seed­ing star­tups on the ra­zor’s edge be­tween bi­ol­o­gy and sci­ence fic­tion: gene ther­a­py to pre­vent ag­ing, CRISPRed pigs that can be used to har­vest or­gans for trans­plant, and home kits to test your poop for healthy or un­healthy bac­te­ria. (OK, maybe they’re not all on that ra­zor’s edge.)

But now a new spin­out from the De­part­ment of Ge­net­ics’ sec­ond floor is tack­ling a far hum­bler prob­lem — one that ma­jor com­pa­ny af­ter ma­jor com­pa­ny has stum­bled over as they tried to get cures for rare dis­eases and oth­er gene ther­a­pies in­to the clin­ic and past reg­u­la­tors: How the hell do you build these?

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