Antonio Lamb

Antonio Lamb

May 10, 2016

Group 6 Copy 264
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We are officially in the IndieBio accelerator program!

Thanks to the amazing support and enthusiasm we received from the community through the Experiment.com platform, our team was offered an incredible opportunity to join the IndieBio synthetic biology accelerator program in Cork, Ireland. The additional seed funding we received ($50,000) should allow us to make some great progress not only on the algal insulin work, but also in developing our own platform technology to express other orally deliverable therapeutics, like fish vaccines for the pet fish industry and for aquaculture farms. This is how our startup, Microsynbiotix was born.

Above: fresh stocks of Chlorella vulgariis and chlamydomonas reinhardtii being subcultured in the IndieBio laboratory in Cork, Ireland.

We are using Benchling (our official research platform) to document our attempts at modifying a classic tris-acetate phosphate (TAP) medium to see if we can maximize algal growth.

Though we are trying to create a sustainable business with the technology we are developing, we are staying true to our original promise to make our algal insulin project open source. This portion of our experimental work will always be freely available to the community as a sign of our gratitude for their generous support in making our startup possible.

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  • jimofoz
    jimofozBacker
    Also Todd Rider is trying to crowdfund development of a treatment called Draco that could deal with all double stranded RNA viral infections. Could you guys produce this molecule in chloroplasts that could be ingested by fish? This could make the value proposition of your company even stronger. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dracos-may-be-an-effective-cure-for-viral-diseases#/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144912/
    May 17, 2016
  • Antonio Lamb
    Antonio LambResearcher
    That is interesting. We will look into it! Thanks for sharing.
    May 18, 2016
  • jimofoz
    jimofozBacker
    Did you choose fish for any particular reason? Why not humans or other livestock?
    May 17, 2016
  • Antonio Lamb
    Antonio LambResearcher
    We chose fish because it eats algae naturally and the dosage required to vaccinate fish is much lower. We've also identified that there is a clear market demand. We would of course consider other avenues if we are successful in this area.
    May 18, 2016

About This Project

This page serves as an archive of our first proof-of-concept experiments to genetically modify microalgae before founding MicroSynbiotiX. We were partially successful in expressing proinsulin. We were successful in genetically modifying a strain of microalgae to express recombinant proteins (GFP), fish vaccines, and we even began fish vaccine trials with our first candidate product. Fish vaccines are our priority now, but we will revisit insulin and human therapeutics soon!

Blast off!

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