Syntax Bio, a synthetic biology company, has published new research in Science Advances describing its CRISPR-based Cellgorithm technology. The technology is designed to enable programmable control of gene activity in human stem cells, providing an alternative to the traditional manual methods used for cell differentiation.
Current approaches to cell differentiation require scientists to expose stem cells to growth factors and environmental cues over several months. These processes are sensitive to timing and reagent conditions, often resulting in inconsistent outcomes that are hard to reproduce or scale. Syntax Bio developed the Cellgorithm platform to address these challenges.
The Cellgorithm system encodes the necessary sequence of gene activations into a single DNA program, which automates the process of directing stem cells toward specific lineages. This reduces the need for repeated manual interventions and has demonstrated the ability to generate a variety of cell types in days or weeks instead of months.
A key issue in regenerative medicine has been the lack of reproducible and efficient methods for producing functional cell types. Industry reports indicate that researchers frequently encounter problems with reproducibility, batch variability, and long optimization times during cell differentiation and manufacturing. These issues limit scalability, delay discovery efforts, and increase costs for therapies based on living cells.
Syntax Bio’s technology aims to make stem cell-based treatments more accessible by improving consistency and scalability. "For patients, this advancement could lead to faster access to stem cell-based treatments for diabetes, heart failure, Parkinson's disease, vision loss and other diseases," according to Syntax Bio. The company also states that its approach can accelerate clinical research while reducing costs associated with regenerative therapies.
The company is working with biopharmaceutical partners to apply Cellgorithm-driven differentiation in developing new therapies. In one partnership example cited by Syntax Bio, a process that typically took four months was reduced to less than two weeks using their method.
