Measurement validation of novel nuclear-targeting DNA as next generation therapies
Innovate UK
Touchlight Ip Limited
With the development of new DNA-based therapies and technologies the demand for nucleic acid products continues to increase. The requirement for large quantities of high-quality DNA and the need to produce more difficult sequences for advanced therapeutics have brought the production of DNA to its limits. Current methods of DNA manufacture rely on bacterial fermentation which suffers from both manufacturing capacity issues and low sequence stability during bacterial growth.    Touchlight's synthetic biology DNA production process overcomes the current limitation of bacterial fermentation using enzymatic means of production. This _in vitro_ DNA technology is able to produce large-scale, high-quality constructs using a DNA polymerase to amplify DNA templates and a protelomerase to cleave and ligate amplified DNA into minimal cassettes for use in therapeutics and synthetic biology applications. Continuous developments in the process have resulted in both increased capacity and reduced footprint for DNA manufacture alleviating some of the current bottlenecks associated with nucleic acid production    Although large advances in this process have been made in DNA manufacturing a greater understanding of how DNA behaves in a cellular context will allow the production of improved DNA products and platform.    Touchlight has developed new DNA constructs with improved cellular and nuclear targeting abilities resulting in increased protein expression however the limited knowledge and ability to monitor DNA within a cell makes further optimisation challenging. A more detailed understanding of the DNA subcellular localisation is therefore essential for the continuing improvement of Touchlight's core constructs.    The knowledge generated from this project will increase Touchlight's ability to satisfy DNA demand and will contribute directly to improving human health. Translated improvements in nuclear entry efficiency for Touchlight's leading _in vitro_ DNA manufacturing process will help meet the increasing demand of DNA constructs from Industrial partners and decrease the costs of DNA therapeutics.
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