How biotech can enhance national security

Ending the week with the role of biotech in national security and curing hepatitis, plus more reading and listening for this hot summer weekend. (521 words, 2 minutes, 36 seconds)

How Ginkgo's new defense contract will enhance national security

Ginkgo Bioworks has been contracted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to enhance national security by enabling high-speed production of complex therapeutic proteins in remote locations.

What are complex therapeutic proteins? They’re used in the newer breed of large-molecule drugs, also called biologics, in many treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases—as well as medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear threats, Ginkgo explains.

How are they made? Complex therapeutic proteins require bespoke cellular organisms that can take months to produce and must be fermented for days.

Ginkgo’s making them faster—leveraging Cell-Free Protein Synthesis (CFPS), in which a cell’s outer membrane is stripped away to access active biomolecules in the cell’s cytoplasm. Working without live cells, CFPS allows the production of therapeutic proteins within 24 hours.

Another benefit: Production can take place in remote areas with limited infrastructure, next to the hospital where they are needed.

What Ginkgo’s doing: The BIO member company will help the Reimagining Protein Manufacturing project improve the efficiency and consistency of CFPS, by leveraging Ginkgo’s assets like a database of more than 1 billion proprietary gene sequences and synthetic biology platform.

How hepatitis awareness could lead to a cure

Like many diseases, COVID-19 had a negative impact on hepatitis prevention, screening, and treatment—but new innovations are underway.

Why awareness matters: Viral hepatitis claims more than 1 million lives each year and impacts millions of Americans, though more than half of those with hepatitis don’t know they’re infected.

What happened during the pandemic? As resources were diverted to the COVID response, routine hepatitis immunization, as well as screening and treatment, lapsed. 

Incredible progress is underway—including against hepatitis C, from the first identification of the virus in 1989 to the development of new direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) that can cure 90% of cases, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) explains.

What’s next? Novel DAAs might provide a breakthrough cure for hepatitis B, according to research.

The end goal: The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to eliminate hepatitis by 2030—but that requires screening, treatment, and biotech innovation.

Read about World Hepatitis Day on Bio.News.

More Health News: 

AP: Biden announces an advanced cancer research initiative as part of his ‘moonshot’ effort
“The administration’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H, is launching a Precision Surgical Interventions program, seeking ideas from the public and private sectors to explore how to dramatically improve cancer outcomes in the coming decades by developing better surgical interventions to treat the disease.” 

TD Cowen Podcast: Biotech and the Inflation Reduction Act
“John Murphy, Chief Policy Officer & Healthcare Counsel at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) speaks with Yaron Werber, Biotechnology Analyst about how the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will impact innovation in biotech.” 

The Guardian: Pascal Soriot of AstraZeneca: ‘The climate crisis is a health crisis
“It’s affecting us all through respiratory diseases, cancers, health conditions, infectious diseases,” said the CEO of AstraZeneca, a BIO member company. “This crisis is actually a health crisis.”

President Biden’s Friday: Promoting “Bidenomics” during a speech at a manufacturing facility in Auburn, ME, and attending a fundraiser in Freeport, ME, per the Portland Press Herald.

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: Out for recess.