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Our platform

Our platform

In this post, I would like to introduce the Humane Genomics Artificial Virus Platform. Why develop an artificial virus platform? For decades, a lot of research has been conducted to see if natural viruses can be used as cancer therapeutics, with limited success. Over the last 10 years, the technology to engineer, to build viruses specifically as cancer therapeutics has matured. However, most technology approaches to make these viruses are complicated, error prone, time consuming and expensive. To address these…

Introduction – Rupsa

Introduction – Rupsa

Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Rupsa Basu and I am a viral immunologist by passion and a backpacker at heart. My mantra of life is to dream, believe and achieve. As a seven years old kid, I started dreaming about becoming a scientist and developed an increased interest in reading science fiction and detective fiction stories. After reading the book “Selfish Gene” in elementary school, I got inspired with nature’s scientific secrets and slowly idolized…

Year in review 2020

Year in review 2020

  Looking back, 2020 was quite the year. We designed 200 unique oncolytic viruses, and we confirmed 163 viruses are working (replication competent) in the lab. Among these, we engineered 42 glycoproteins, 29 promoters and 14 therapeutic genes. We generated more than 10 billion virus particles over the year, which we tested in 11 research cell lines and 8 patient derived cells. Building on our in vitro success, we also conducted 2 mouse studies. How did the year unfold chronologically?…

Introduction – Taylor

Introduction – Taylor

Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Taylor Flaat and I am from Panama City Beach, Florida, although I was actually born in Grand Forks, North Dakota. We moved from Grand Forks when I was just two years old and my family has been in Panama City ever since. I grew up an avid fisherman and baseball player, with my favorite food definitely being the homestyle cooking of my mom and grandma! I did my undergraduate degree…

Last update on our COVID-19 vaccine

Last update on our COVID-19 vaccine

It has been almost 7 months since the last update of our work on the COVID-19 vaccine candidate. In this post, we share the results and what we have learned. Because there are several other vaccines available that are highly effective against SARS-CoV-2, we decided to stop further research on our vaccine and to focus on developing cancer therapies. We will explain more about our decision in this post. First, a brief reminder on why we decided to make a…

Update on COVID19 vaccine

Update on COVID19 vaccine

We want to share exciting news: Lab results show that we have made our vaccine as designed. In our previous post, we disclosed a design of a potential vaccine for COVID-19 based on VSV. In a subsequent post, we have also shared quite a bit of scientific background on why we believe it should work. With this post, we want to share an update on our work in the lab. Before we do that a bit of background. The physical…

Scientific Data Supporting Our Proposal For COVID-19 Vaccine

Scientific Data Supporting Our Proposal For COVID-19 Vaccine

With a lot of countries taking more drastic measures and enforcing limited social contact (known as social distancing), we are left to ask, what is next? We believe it is possible to make a vaccine for COVID-19 that provides long lasting immunity. We also believe we can do this, fast. We recently shared our design here. Since then, we have found several papers that support our line of thinking. Included among these, an article by Liniger et al. that describes…

Proposal For Vaccine For COVID-19

Proposal For Vaccine For COVID-19

Let me start by sharing, we are worried about the recent outbreak of COVID-19, also known as SARS-CoV-2 and 2019-nCoV. We feel deeply for all the people who are sick or have loved ones currently infected. We also see the impact on society.  After the initial outbreak, like most of us, we continued with business as usual. We also hoped for and expected the rapid development of vaccines. (Read here about current efforts) At the present moment, however, we feel…

Introduction – Peter Weijmarshausen

Introduction – Peter Weijmarshausen

The third and last in a series of Questions and Answers with the co-founders of Humane Genomics. Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. I am a serial entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of Shapeways. I am a big tech and science nerd and have too many interests to keep up with. Some of the things I am passionate about, besides Humane Genomics, are: astrophysics, internet of things (Raspberry Pi’s), writing software in various different languages, brewing beer, cooking,…

Introduction – Chad Moles

Introduction – Chad Moles

The second in a series of Questions and Answers with the founders of Humane Genomics. Q: Tell me a bit about yourself. I’m a big science nerd. I’ve always been interested in the intersection of science and technology, and how it can advance humanity and healthcare. I also have a soft spot for animals, and have a dog, four cats, and 18 fish.  Q: Why did you decide to become a founder of Humane Genomics? There are several reasons why…