The Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology is receiving a $10 million grant to support the training of new scientists and the launch of biotech startups pursuing therapies for human diseases.
The money comes from the Washington Research Foundation at a time when many researchers are anxious about their futures due to the Trump administration’s promised funding cuts.
Seattle Hub opened in January 2024 as a collaboration between the Allen Institute and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which are each contributing $35 million to the effort, and the University of Washington, which is providing foundational technology. The Washington Research Foundation, a nonprofit facilitating tech commercialization, previously gave $105,000 to the hub.
Seattle Hub is focused on technology that genetically modifies mammalian cells, enabling them to use DNA to make a recording of what the cell is experiencing over time. The hope is that the record will provide insights into biological processes, such as tracing how a single cell multiplies and turns into different types of cells, how tumors grow, interactions between cells, and other events.
Tom Daniel, president and CEO of the Washington Research Foundation, calls the innovation “super, super cool.” The DNA records, he said, could lead to disease diagnostics, tracking, and treatments such as engineering T cells that can battle cancer.
The work builds on DNA recording technologies developed in the lab of UW Medicine geneticist Dr. Jay Shendure, who is also the scientific lead of Seattle Hub.
Shendure’s research, combined with groundbreaking innovations from UW professor and Nobel winner David Baker and colleagues, place Seattle at “the epicenter of synthetic biology,” Daniel said.
The new grant will help fund Seattle Hub’s SeaBridge program, which is being led by UW Medicine’s Brotman Baty Institute and the Allen Institute. The program’s research leads are Shendure; Marion Pepper, hub co-director and chair of the UW Medicine Department of Immunology; and Jesse Gray, hub senior director of scientific operations and strategy.
SeaBridge will recruit and train 40 postdoctoral fellows who will be based in multiple research institutions, essentially spreading expertise in the new technology around the region.
While they can’t match the impact of federal support, Daniel is eager for foundations and philanthropies to step up and support research to help the advancement of science and the next generation of researchers.
“SeaBridge is an example,” he said, “of what philanthropy can do.”
https://ift.tt/tEpyIOm March 06, 2025 at 03:00PM GeekWire
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