Therapy Areas: Central Nervous System
bit.bio Adds Two New Human Cell Products to Address the Translation Gap and Accelerate Research and Drug Discovery for Neurodegenerative Disease
3 October 2022 - - UK-based cell coding company bit.bio has expanded its product portfolio - ioGlutamatergic Neurons TDP-43M337V disease model and early access to its ioMicroglia cell product, the company said.

Despite considerable research efforts and funding, the development of therapies for devastating diseases like Alzheimer's disease, Frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has been challenging.

Due to a lack of standardised, easy to use and readily accessible human cell models, scientists have relied on animal models and cell lines that differ considerably from human biology.

bit.bio's latest cell products provide a scalable source of human cells and will enable scientists to study neurodegenerative diseases in a human context.

With consistency across batches and a scalable supply, bit.bio's products will significantly reduce experimental variability in non-clinical studies and improve the translatability and reproducibility of research findings.

These unique product features have the potential to transform research and drug discovery.

Today, AD and FTD, the leading causes of early onset dementia, have no treatment options to stop or slow their onset. Similarly, current treatment options for ALS, the most common motor neuron degenerative disease, are limited.

ioGlutamatergic Neurons TDP-43M337V, have a mutation in the TAR DNA binding protein gene that codes for the TDP-43 protein, which is known to cause both FTD and ALS.

The disease model cells and the genetically matched control, ioGlutamatergic Neurons, mature rapidly, are highly reproducible between batches, and have unprecedented scalability.

These key features make them ideally suited to high-throughput screening applications for early drug discovery.

Being able to compare data from the physiologically-relevant disease models to those of the control offers the potential to identify and investigate the effects of the genetic mutation on the disease mechanisms of FTD and ALS.

Increasing evidence suggests that microglia contribute to the onset and progression of AD and are involved in the pathogenesis of ALS and FTD.

Therefore they may represent an additional therapeutic target. However, speed, variability, and scalability continue to be major challenges with commonly used microglia.

ioMicroglia, now available as part of an early access program, address these challenges allowing scientists to work with consistent, functional cells that are ready for experimentation within just 10 days.

bit.bio is a synthetic biology company providing human cells for research, drug discovery and cell therapy. It has released six ioCells research products into the market and is currently building out its clinical pipeline.

bit.bio's foundational opti-oxTM precision reprogramming technology enables highly consistent and scalable manufacture of human cells.

The activation of cell type-defining transcription factor programs inserted into genomic safe harbour sites allows deterministic reprogramming of induced pluripotent stem cells into highly defined and mature human cells.

bit.bio's discovery platform is based on a deep synthetic biology tech stack and uses large scale experimentation and machine learning to identify combinations of transcription factor genes that encode cell identity.

bit.bio has assembled a team of pioneers with world-leading expertise in stem cell and synthetic biology, manufacturing, and clinical translation.

ioMicroglia are iPSC-derived (induced pluripotent stem cell) immune cells, which will boost research into the physiology and diseases of the central nervous system, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and ALS.
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