Cell Bauhaus: Using mathematics and biology to solve tomorrow’s problems

The need

While synthetic biology has made remarkable advancements over the past few decades in altering cellular behaviour and leveraging it for our advantage, it is a resource-intensive field. Investigating how genetic changes alter cellular behaviour often requires multiple rounds of trial-and-error testing in expensive laboratories with large teams. This makes innovation challenging.

“Cell Bauhaus has the technology to unblock this bottleneck,” says CEO and Co-Founder, Dr Megan Coomer. “Designing biotech and healthcare solutions on the computer vastly reduces development times and costs,” she explains. “We see Cell Bauhaus as providing the technology that will unleash new, smarter, engineering-based ways of innovating in the life sciences, biotech, and sciences. It will speed up innovation by orders of magnitude and, in the process, reduce the exorbitant research and development costs associated with these industries.”

The research

Cell Bauhaus is building digital twins of biological cells to quickly and cheaply explore the effects of genetic changes on cellular behaviour.

“Firstly, we hope our research will unlock widespread adoption of genetically modified organisms to produce sustainable chemistries that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and revolutionise the way we manufacture everything from food to fuel,” Dr Coomer says. “Secondly, we hope to help advance precision medicine by modelling a patient’s response to a particular concentration or combination of drugs, based on unique genetic profiles.”

With an ongoing goal to deepen understanding of an organism’s genome, Cell Bauhaus is exploring how gene-editing technologies can be used by bioengineers to design and engineer cells as precisely as aeronautical engineers design planes.

Going to market

Still in an early exploratory phase, Cell Bauhaus has unearthed tools and attracted significant investments made by Tin Alley Ventures and the University of Melbourne Genesis Pre-Seed Fund. “Our ideas, our science and our technology have deep and longstanding roots in fundamental research,” says Professor Michael Stumpf, Co-Founder and CSO at Cell Bauhaus.

“But ultimately, successful impact requires a combination of research excellence and commercialisation. Genesis and Tin Alley have provided us with office space and equipment, access to marketing and branding resources and commercialisation experts,” he explains, “and are helping to foster relationships in the University’s innovation ecosystem as well as globally. Universities, like Melbourne, are in a position to fundamentally change the future.”

The outcome

In operation for only six months, Cell Bauhaus has already attracted outstanding students and graduates from leading international universities.

“The excitement of early career researchers appears to be shared by funders in the United States and Europe and we’re optimistic about our chances to grow Cell Bauhaus internationally,” Professor Stumpf says.

With a determined global focus, the Cell Bauhaus team is forging a clear pathway for its researchers to contribute to industry within the University of Melbourne ecosystem, helping spark ingenuity and progress that puts Australia on the map as an international player in the startup space.

“Seeing more academics successfully commercialising their ideas, researchers can appreciate that they can be amazing scientists and great entrepreneurs,” says Dr Coomer.