Mammoth Biosciences just raised $23 million in venture funding

The science team behind
Mammoth Biosciences
Mammoth
Biosciences

• Mammoth Biosciences announced a $23 million funding
  round on Tuesday, setting the company up to try and make a dent
  in the $45 billion global disease detection
  market.
• The startup uses CRISPR-based technology to detect the
  presence of diseases like HPV and malaria in DNA from blood or
  urine samples. 
• The technology is easily transportable and doesn’t
  require expensive machines to run tests.

Mammoth
Biosciences‘ motto is simple: to make up-to-date diagnostics
simple, accessible and affordable.

“If you think about what we’re offering it’s kind of like a
pregnancy test,” said Trevor Martin, co-founder and CEO of
Mammoth Biosciences. But instead of tracking hormones that
indicates whether a person is pregnant or not, it tracks the
presence of diseases like HPV or
malaria. 

On Tuesday, Mammoth announced that they’ve raised $23M, led by
top Silicon Valley firm Mayfield Partners as well as venture
firms NFX and 8VC. Mammoth is trying to make a mark in the
$45
billion global disease detection market, dominated by
heavyweights like Roche, Abbott, Siemens and Johnson &
Johnson 

Martin came up with the idea for the company just over a year ago
with Stanford University classmate Ashley Tehranchi. They then
connected with PhD students Janice Chen, Lucas Harrington and
biochemistry professor Jennifer Doudna at UC
Berkeley and calibrated the use of a novel gene-editing tool
called CRISPR for disease diagnostics.

CRISPR is a component of bacteria immune systems that when paired
with a Cas-protein, can identify and chop up the DNAs and RNAs of
harmful invading viruses. Scientists have recently used the
CRISPR-Cas complex as a tool to edit the genes of yeast and
mice. 

Doudna, Chen and Harrington found
earlier this year that CRISPR in conjunction with Cas12 and
Cas 13 proteins can be applied to diagnostics. They were able to
use these complexes to accurately detect the presence of HPV in
patient samples. 

Martin says that the team at Mammoth is exploring the use for
CRISPR as the search engine for biology. The CRISPR-Cas complexes
are fitted with a guide-RNA, which tells them what specific
sequence to look for in the DNA or RNA sample. Martin
compares this to using the ‘Ctrl+F’ function in computers to find
and pinpoint keywords or phrases on a webpage. 

Martin said that these guide-RNAs can
be programmed to find disease-specific RNA or DNA sequences. Then
the proteins will bind to all of the matching sequences in the
sample and cut them out. Once they make a cut, a reporter
molecule attached to the CRISPR-Cas molecule will emit a color.
The color change can be read out from fluorescence or
color-metrics, and the presence of color will indicate that the
sample tested positive for a disease. 

A
lab officer cuts a DNA fragment under UV light from an agarose
gel for DNA sequencing.
Associated
Press/Wong Maye-E

And all of this happens without
the presence of heavy duty machinery typically used in
diagnostics, like a PCR machine. Plus, the technique is sample
agnostic, according to Martin, so it can be used to test blood,
urine or saliva. 

Since the CRISPR-Cas protein complexes are stable, they can be
easily handled and transported, making them accessible to a wide
range of patients. They can even come on a piece of paper, and
all that’s left to do is add a drop of blood onto the paper, and
get the results read through a phone camera. 

“There’s huge implications here for global health and the public,
because there’s lots of barriers to access these molecular
techniques” said Martin. By eliminating the need for clunky and
expensive PCR machines and UV readers, Mammoth aims to
democratize diagnostics for use outside of medical-grade labs.

Mammoth’s platform is still in development. This funding will
allow the team to develop infrastructure for the CRISPR platform
and carry out specific disease detection tests for not only
healthcare applications, but across agriculture, forensic, and
oil industries. It will also support the product through clinical
testing. 

The team behind Mammoth Biosciences
Mammoth Biosciences

Mammoth also welcomes infectious disease expert Charles Chui and
protein engineering expert Dave Savage to its growing Scientific
Advisory Board, chaired by Jennifer Doudna. 

“We’re very excited to actually work with partners that have this
technology to benefit the developing world, not only for existing
diseases, but also emerging diseases,” said Martin.