Public Funding for Gitlife Biotech Ltd

In this exciting collaborative project, NCIMB, an established Scottish biotechnology company, is teaming up with GitLife Biotech (GLB), a spinout from Newcastle University. The partners aim to develop new innovative products and services using groundbreaking Engineering Biology protocols. The proposed project centres around the development of a new class of therapeutic based on living bacteria. We aim to use engineering biology to enhance the functionality of a probiotic that has been used for several decades to support gut health. We will focus on engineering a specific metabolite that plays a key physiological role in the gut helping to maintain a balanced gut microbiome and gut health. This is important because imbalance or dysbiosis of the gut microbiome is associated with a broad range of diseases. If successful, we will develop a new engineered bacterial strain that can be used maintain a healthy gut microbiome and can therefore be used to prevent or treat disease. In the project, we will use GLB's innovative cloud-based "version control" and biosecurity platform, that captures and organises biological data including DNA sequence produced during the project. The software links the data to the microbial strain using a unique, non-coding DNA sequence (GenoStamp(tm)) which is introduced during the project. The DNA sequence differentiates the engineered strain from similar strains within the same species. Upon completion of the engineering process, strains will be DNA signed with GenoGuard(tm) to provide a mechanism to prove ownership and secure the engineered bio-asset. If successful, our project will deliver a novel engineered bacterial strain with clinical potential, complete with a transparent digital footprint and full ownership traceability. The potential health benefits add significant market value to a probiotic strain and we envisage the engineered therapeutic strain would be transformative for patients suffering from bowel cancer, inflammatory bowel disease or infection. There are considerable spillover benefits for the version control" and biosecurity platform in a wide range of products and applications that use engineered microbes.

Synthetic biology (SynBio) is a young and exciting field that combines many different scientific disciplines to redesign organisms for useful purposes by engineering them to perform new functions. SynBio has potential to revolutionise many existing industries and resolve crises in agriculture, energy and healthcare. There is no surprise that substantial funding has been dedicated to this field from both the UK government and commercial investors. With a rapid expansion in the Synbio industry, there is an ever increasing need for the protection of UK commercial biological assets. The traditional IP and asset protection strategies such as patenting and T&C in contracts are not suitable for supporting the agile commercialisation of SynBio generated biological assets. This leaves highly valuable assets vulnerable for extended periods of time, potentially delaying and complicating the scaling-up process and inhibiting commercialisation. Simultaneously, adoption of genetically engineered assets faces public distrust due to the lack of traceability and transparency. In this project GitLife Biotech Ltd, a spinout from Newcastle University and Colorifix Ltd, a SME based at Norwich Research Park, Norwich have come together to address these issues by putting forward a novel and innovative solution for faster scale-out and commercialisation of Engineering Biology innovations. GitLife Biotech Ltd has developed a biosecurity system for engineered microorganisms. They insert a unique DNA sequence in the genome of organisms that acts as an identifying factor. This unique DNA sequence is recorded along with all the information regarding the engineering process and the rightful owners of that particular strain on their cloud-based digital platform. As the DNA sequence is heritable and unique to a single owner entity, the biological asset can always traced back to their rightful owner. Colorifix is a sustainable tech. SynBio company that harnesses genetic engineering and bioinformatics to engineer microbes to produce coloured pigments that can dye fabrics. The dyes themselves are sustainable and unlike current dyeing processes no toxic chemicals are necessary in addition to reduction of water usage significantly. In this project, GitLife will incorporate their biosecurity toolkit in five of Colorifix’s small molecule producing strains . GitLife will demonstrate that these strains will remain traceable to Colorifix and Colorifix is able to share, sell and scale-out these strains without endangering their revenue due to their strains being copied and exploited by bad actors.

Synthetic Biology (SynBio) is the application of engineering principles to biology. Synthetic Biologists think of proteins as machines, composed of multiple different components, each encoded by genes or parts of genes. By rearranging genes, they can make proteins with new functions. SynBio also uses computer modelling heavily, mapping what genes should go where in designs for new biological machine. SynBio aims to solve problems in energy, food production and human health by optimising biological machines. Lots of grant funding and private investment has poured into SynBio research. However, there are no reliable systems to match engineered organisms with records of how they were constructed. Because commercial competitors can copy engineered organisms relatively easily, many new ideas fail to be commercialised. It is also critical that companies using SynBio can provide government agencies who regulate SynBio with absolute proof that they are using the strain they say they are. GitLife Biotech (GLB) has developed a system that can insert 'barcode' sequences of DNA into an organism's genome. Anyone can find out the sequence of this barcode and use it to see what a particular strain is. In this project, they want to make this system more secure by using a computer coding system called Elliptical Curve cryptography. They also want to demonstrate that they can insert several barcodes into a strain at different locations. The DNA sequence of these barcodes, combined with their location makes it practically impossible for anyone wanting to copy the strain to remove these identification marks. GLB plans to launch this system onto the market in late 2023\. An investment company called SFC Capital are interested in making an equity investment, provided that GLB can secure a grant to cover some of the costs of making their technology more secure and faster to apply.