Microorganisms grown in laboratories have been the starting point for many medicines we have today. However, many more microorganisms exist in nature that can’t be grown in a lab because they are too small, too fragile, or evolve too rapidly. Also, microbes grown in culture behave differently than those extracted from the natural world, and are more limited in their ability to perform the chemical reactions that lead to drug discovery and product development.
But Biosortia Pharmaceuticals has developed a novel way to access the previously hidden chemistry of microorganisms and capture small molecules directly from nature.
Biosortia uses its technology to collect microbiomes in quantity and at quality, a concept known as microbiome mining. The microbiomes are becoming part of Biosortia’s growing library of patentable natural molecule activity and derivatives that can be used by various industries, including pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and agricultural, to solve problems and create products.
“Microbes are and have always been chemical researchers and factories of life,” says Ross Youngs, founder and CEO of Biosortia.
The ability of Biosortia to recover active microbiomes is creating “massive opportunities to explore the unknown,” he says in a recent LinkedIn post.
Biosortia’s microbiome mining approach has several advantages:
– More options. Biosortia’s technology allows the company unprecedented access to previously unavailable molecules that have the potential for use in a range of industries, and can provide a genomic roadmap to accompany data on the activity of the chemistry.
– More efficiency. Biosortia accesses material from the microbiome in days, compared to the years needed by other researchers. In addition, the cost of Biosortia technology is significantly lower than traditional methods of microorganism development.
– More success. Small molecules accessed directly from the microbiome are more likely to be successful in clinical development than those cultured in a lab because they have reached their potential in nature.
Biorsortia continues to expand and has secured four patents to date, as well as a pending contract with the Department of Homeland Security. The Company’s science team publication technology has been peer-reviewed and received an Editor’s Choice Award from the American Chemical Society.
For more information, visit fundable.com/biosortia.
