Every stem cell therapy starts as cells that need to be fed.
What goes into the medium shapes what comes out: how well the cells grow, how closely one batch matches the next, and whether supply can keep pace as therapies move from trials to patients. Those ingredients should come from a source that is defined and free of diseases from animal sources.
From gene to cell
Gene
The instructions for our protein ingredients.
Seed
A soybean seed: nature’s bioreactor.
Protein
A molecule that feeds stem cells nutrients.
Cell
A stem cell: the start of a living medicine.
WHY SEEDS
A seed is already a protein factory.
A soybean seed spends a season storing protein and nutrients, then mobilizes all of it when it germinates. That is the window where we build the needed proteins.
Soybeans are grown on farmland around the world. Capacity comes from planting acres, not from building expensive bioreactors.
Figure 1. A soybean seed germinating.
WHY IT MATTERS
Living medicines need consistent food.
Stem cell therapies are living medicines. Each dose begins as a small amount of cells that need to divide and expand in culture until there are enough to treat a patient. The medium they grow in is essential.
Ingredients taken from animals vary from lot to lot, depend on animal supply chains and carry disease risk. Therapies that must be made the same way, dose after dose, are better served by molecules that are animal-free and are produced in our controlled indoor environment.
That is what we are building.
Figure 2. A stem cell divides. One daughter stays a stem cell; the other becomes a nerve cell.
WHO WE ARE
The people building it.
Brian DeDecker, PhD
Chief Executive and co-founder
PhD, structural biology, Yale University
Postdoctoral research, protein engineering, University of Cambridge
Fellow, drug discovery, Harvard
Professor, molecular, cellular and developmental biology, University of Colorado Boulder
Maya Nelson
Science Lead and co-founder
BA, biochemistry, University of Colorado Boulder
Leads the laboratory program: plant bioengineering
Chuck Lee, PhD
Business Development Lead
PhD, microbiology, University of Oxford
BA, molecular biology, University of Colorado Boulder
Leads our conversations with future commercial partners
Milestones
November 2023
Colorado Advanced Industries Accelerator
Early-Stage Capital and Retention award, State of Colorado
Spring 2025
gener8tor gBETA
Pre-accelerator program, Spring 2025 cohort
2025
USDA Small Business Innovation Research grant
Phase I, National Institute of Food and Agriculture
CONTACT
Tell us what your cells need.
We would like to hear from you.