Seattle, WA, May 21, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A-Alpha Bio, a biotechnology company harnessing synthetic biology and machine learning to measure, predict, and engineer protein-protein interactions, today announced $14.5M in additional funding from the Department of Defense (DOD) Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense’s (JPEO-CBRND's) Generative Unconstrained Intelligent Drug Engineering (GUIDE) program to further expand its partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), a federally funded research and development center.
A-Alpha's partnership with LLNL began with $1M in funding in 2022 and was expanded in 2023 with an additional $2.4M, with funding provided by JPEO-CBRND GUIDE. This collaboration is aimed to preemptively generate data and train computational models that enable rapid medical countermeasures against potential future biothreats. The additional support will fund A-Alpha Bio’s generation of large-scale antibody-antigen binding datasets and enable training and validation of predictive computational models for multiple undisclosed pathogen families of concern.
GUIDE’s mission is to leverage integrated computational and experimental capabilities to accelerate drug development by harnessing the power of advanced simulation and machine learning. The program was established in response to the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the critical need for rapid medical countermeasures against novel biothreats. Since predicting the next specific biothreat is not possible, the DOD focuses on developing capabilities that will enable rapid response to any emerging challenge. Core to the program’s success is the ability to quickly and iteratively generate large-scale experimental data to train and validate predictive computational models. A-Alpha Bio was tapped to generate large-scale antibody-antigen binding data and enable the training and validation of predictive machine learning models.
Over the past two years, A-Alpha and LLNL have demonstrated the success of their approach, first with coronaviruses and then with other select pathogen families of concern. Using its AlphaSeq platform, A-Alpha Bio experimentally measures millions of protein-protein interactions between thousands of pathogen variants and a diverse panel of antibody sequences. These multidimensional binding data are then integrated with LLNL’s high-performance computing. To date, nearly 10 million quantitative antibody-antigen binding affinities have been measured with AlphaSeq across three pathogen families and these data have enabled significant improvements in the accuracy of affinity-predicting machine learning models. Further, AlphaSeq data has been used to identify stabilized antigen variants and remove a significant obstacle to GUIDE’s success. These accomplishments over the past two years have prompted the additional funding to A-Alpha Bio.
“The past two years of collaboration with LLNL on the GUIDE program have seen remarkable success in training predictive machine learning models with high-throughput antibody-antigen binding data, and we are excited to expand our partnership with additional JPEO-CBRND support,” said Randolph Lopez, Ph.D. Chief Technical Officer at A-Alpha Bio. “There is an enormous need for biothreat preparedness, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but success here points to far broader drug discovery applications that will be enabled by high-throughput experimentation and machine learning, and we are excited to be at the center of these efforts.”
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About A-Alpha Bio
A-Alpha Bio is a biotechnology company harnessing synthetic biology and machine learning to measure, predict, and engineer protein-protein interactions.
Our experimental platform, AlphaSeq, enables the rapid and quantitative measurement of millions of protein-protein binding affinities simultaneously. Our computational platform, AlphaBind, is trained on the world’s largest protein-protein interaction database and predicts binding strength from sequence. A-Alpha Bio leverages AlphaSeq and AlphaBind for in-house therapeutic programs and in partnership with leading pharmaceutical companies to inform the discovery and development of novel therapeutics.
A-Alpha Bio is based in Seattle and was founded in 2017 at the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design and Center for Synthetic Biology.
To learn more, please visit: https://www.aalphabio.com/
About the JPEO-CBRND
The Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) mission is to provide integrated layered chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense capabilities to the Joint Force across combined Joint All-Domain Operations. JPEO-CBRND's goal is to enable the Joint Force to fight and win unencumbered by a CBRN environment. This contract was funded by the Joint Project Lead for CBRND Enabling Biotechnologies (JPL CBRND EB) in collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE) under agreement # A2210-021-089-033253.
The GUIDE program is executed by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) Joint Project Lead for Enabling Biotechnologies (JPL CBRND EB) on behalf of the Department of Defense’s Chemical and Biological Defense Program.
The views expressed in this press release reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, nor the United States Government. References to non-federal entities do not constitute or imply Department of Defense or Army endorsement of any company, product, or organization.
To learn more about JPEO-CBRND, visit: https://www.jpeocbrnd.osd.mil/, or follow JPEO-CBRND on social media @JPEOCBRND.
About Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Founded in 1952, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory provides solutions to our nation's most important national security challenges through innovative science, engineering, and technology. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is managed by Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
