RootPath Launches, Elevating Throughput of Gene Function Interrogation by Orders of Magnitude

WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- RootPath, a synthetic biology company that elevates the throughput of gene function interrogation by orders of magnitude, launched today, debuting technology that enables unprecedented access to long synthetic genes and their functional readouts with multiple applications. The company will present its lead therapeutic candidates, a series of fully personalized T cell therapies, at the Keystone Symposium’s Cancer Immunotherapy: Decoding the Cancer Immunity Interactome in a session and poster titled, “Functional decoding of tumor immune repertoire through massively parallel TCR gene synthesis and screening.”

RootPath is advancing a diverse pipeline of T cell therapies while developing a potentially world-leading synthetic biology platform that will enable researchers, bioengineers and clinicians to make better molecules, cells and organisms in a wide variety of applications.

“We believe our synthetic biology platform and the pipeline it has enabled will transform the future of truly personalized T cell therapies for solid tumors,’’ said Xi Chen, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of RootPath. “We are grateful to present on our limitless gene synthesis capability at the Keystone conference. Our technology has the potential to completely change the economy of gene synthesis by enabling the high-throughput production of genes that are several kilobases long and essentially error-free while also maintaining a cost that is several times lower than the current market price. We are pursuing its application in T cell therapies internally and in many other fields through collaborations.”

The cornerstone of RootPath’s technology suite is PathFinder DNA Assembly™, a Molecular Programming-based technology, which enables autonomous assembly of tens of thousands of inexpensive, short DNA fragments into thousands of long genes simultaneously in a homogenous solution. Application of the company’s synthetic biology platform in immuno-oncology uniquely addresses a central challenge in the treatment of solid tumors: the identification, revival and rapid amplification of tumor-reactive T cells. RootPath has synthesized and functionally screened more than 20,000 TCRs derived from tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and has accumulated an unprecedented resource containing an ever-growing number of TCRs with validated anti-tumor activity.

“No existing technology can synthesize genes achieving length greater than 3 kb, produce an error rate less than 1 in 30,000 base pairs and cost less than 3 cents per base pair. Most emerging technologies focus on only some, but not all three aspects,” said Semmy Huang, board member of RootPath and Partner of CDH Baifu, an asset management platform under CDH Investments. “RootPath is currently the only company in the world that can achieve this impossible trinity and is on its way to far exceed these criteria.”

“Compared to conventional CAR-T and TCR-T, our primary differentiator is where the sequence of the targeting agent is found and how many targeting agents are used,” said Ely Porter, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of RootPath. “We identify multiple potent tumor-reactive TCRs from patient’s own tumor immune repertoire and use them as targeting agents. Therefore, our product can be viewed as a more potent, synthetic version of TIL therapy. We also developed a platform to deorphanize the TCRs we identified so that they potentially can then be used to treat patients with compatible tumor gene-expression profiles and HLA types, resulting in a powerful and flexible suite of TCR-T therapies toward common antigens.”

RootPath was incubated and founded by Nest.bio Ventures in 2017 and has since raised more than $60 million from renowned investors such as Sequoia Capital China, CDH Investment and Sky9 Capital. The company was founded by Xi Chen, Ph.D., who previously served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Nest.bio Ventures, and Ely Porter, Ph.D., who also worked alongside Chen at Nest.bio.

About RootPath

RootPath is a synthetic biology company that elevates the throughput of gene function interrogation by orders of magnitude. Our Molecular Programming-based DNA fragment assembly technology gives researchers and drug developers unprecedented, equitable access to long synthetic genes and their functional readouts. By applying our technology to mine a patient’s immunome, we create truly personalized T cell therapies for solid tumors. Together, with leading partners, we are exploring new applications across multiple industries. We enable biology at scale.

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