Ovelle, who is planning to use growth and transcription factors to replicate key parts of the environment in which eggs are produced rather than grow actual feeder cells to excrete those factors. If it works, this approach has the advantage of speed; it takes a long time to grow the feeder cells, so if you can bypass some of that you can make eggs more quickly. Based on some conversations I’ve had with one of the founders I think $50 million could probably accelerate progress by about a year.
A few comments on this: 1. The “feeder cells” you’re discussing here are from the method in this paper from the Saitou lab, who used feeder cells to promote development of human PGC-like cells to oogonia. But “takes a long time to grow the feeder cells” is not the issue. In fact, the feeder cells are quite easy to grow. The issue is that it takes a long time for PGC-like cells to develop to eggs, if you’re strictly following the natural developmental trajectory.
2. The $50 million number is for us to set up our own nonhuman primate research facility, which would accelerate our current trajectory by *approximately* a year. On our current trajectory, we are going to need to raise about $5-10 million in the near future to scale up our research. We have already raised $2.15 million and we will start fundraising again this summer. But it’s not like we need $50 million to make progress (although it would certainly help!)
A few comments on this:
1. The “feeder cells” you’re discussing here are from the method in this paper from the Saitou lab, who used feeder cells to promote development of human PGC-like cells to oogonia. But “takes a long time to grow the feeder cells” is not the issue. In fact, the feeder cells are quite easy to grow. The issue is that it takes a long time for PGC-like cells to develop to eggs, if you’re strictly following the natural developmental trajectory.
2. The $50 million number is for us to set up our own nonhuman primate research facility, which would accelerate our current trajectory by *approximately* a year. On our current trajectory, we are going to need to raise about $5-10 million in the near future to scale up our research. We have already raised $2.15 million and we will start fundraising again this summer. But it’s not like we need $50 million to make progress (although it would certainly help!)
Thanks for the clarification. I’ll amend the original post.
Could you do all the research on a boat in the ocean? Excuse the naive question.