The first sequencing of the human genome required 13 years and US$3 billion; today, it takes a week and US$600.
The GP-Write Project, an outgrowth of the Human Genome Project involving hundreds of scientists, aims to make our ability to synthesize (write) human and other large-scale genomes as fast, powerful and cheap as our ability to sequence (read) them. Achieving this will supercharge progress in human health and magnify synbio’s impact across industries.
Synbio vaccines for COVID-19
When the pandemic struck, several synbio companies pivoted from developing vaccines for other viruses to focus on COVID-19. Their bioengineering tools and approach have already enabled several of them to bring forward COVID-19 vaccine candidates faster and with greater potential functionality than classical approaches, which involve creating a weakened or neutralized form of the virus.
One synbio company has already created the first COVID-19 vaccine candidate to reach human trials, setting a speed record for achieving this milestone. Using only the virus’ genetic data, they formulated a vaccine-based messenger RNA (mRNA) for patient testing in 25 days. Another synbio company brought the second vaccine candidate to clinical trials, this one using a small snippet of DNA rather than mRNA. Vaccines like these code cells to produce the viral proteins that trigger an immune response.
And yet another group is pursuing a vaccine where the immune response is sparked by self-assembling protein nanoparticles. The resulting vaccine could provide immunity to multiple strains of the virus at once and wouldn’t require refrigeration during distribution, an important benefit in resource-poor countries.2
Because these synbio vaccines don’t involve cultivating the virus in any form, their manufacture requires much less space, doses occupy less volume and scaling up production can go faster. As with any vaccine, however, they will have to be proven effective in human trials, something never assured.
COVID-19 antibody therapeutics
While vaccines are key to definitively ending the COVID-19 pandemic, antibody therapies are essential to blunt its human toll in the interim. The principle is simple: give infected patients the antibodies that can fight off the viral infection to help them recover; give the antibodies to healthy people to improve their resistance temporarily. The classical ways to produce antibodies are to extract them from the blood of convalescent patients or to produce them in genetically modified animals, such as mice. Both methods face the challenge of time and scaling to meet the massive need.
Several synbio companies have jumped in with potential antibody solutions. One company, for example, started with five antibodies to the SARS-CoV-1, the virus which caused the SARS outbreak in 2003, and the one most closely related to COVID-19. The company sequenced and virtually reshuffled the DNA of the SARS antibodies, creating billions of variants which it then scanned to find the ones that would bind with COVID-19. Finally, it created multiple new human antibodies and entered them into safety and efficacy trials.
Beyond the immediate crisis
Beyond vaccines and antibodies, synbio will have an important role in the longer-term fight against COVID-19 and the other possible pandemic pathogens.
A mutation in COVID-19 could render a vaccine ineffective and cause a new outbreak. To support the development of a long-lasting vaccine, researchers published a map of the virus’ epitopes, the parts of the virus to which antibodies attach themselves. By signposting the epitopes that rarely mutate, this data will help synbio teams design vaccines and antibodies that confer long-lasting immunity.
As COVID-19 has spread, so has the concern about the virus persisting on surfaces in public spaces. In the future, will parts of cities be designated viral “go” and “no go” zones as microbiomes change?
As COVID-19 has spread, so has the concern about the virus and other pathogens persisting on surfaces in public spaces. In response, the not-for-profit MetaSub Consortium, which samples and maps the DNA of the organisms in the microbiomes of cities, subways and beaches worldwide, launched a pilot program to look for COVID-19 in more than a dozen major cities around the world. Preliminary results for the New York City subway showed no evidence of the virus. As a result of initiatives like this, we’ll gain much greater visibility into the microbiomes of our shared spaces and understanding of whether they harbor any potential threats to human health. In the future, will parts of cities be designated viral “go” and “no go” zones as microbiomes change?
As the COVID-19 pandemic painfully demonstrates, the time to effective vaccines and therapies is measured in human lives. The key advantage of successful RNA and DNA vaccines and therapies is that once the delivery system and immune response mechanism has been established, the genetic code at the center can be swapped in and out quickly to fight new threats. Synbio may help us save lives by enabling a much faster response to the next major disease outbreak.
Summary
The synbio vaccines and therapies for COVID-19 still must prove safe and effective in human trials – and there are never guarantees. And because they are so new, many of these synbio solutions have yet to exit clinical trials for their original applications to other viruses, let alone to COVID-19. However, they are off to a strong start. If a synbio company is the first, or among the first, in the race to end this pandemic, it will be an important validation of the engineering approach to biology and a dramatic debut to the broader public.