Silicon Chips Enable Mechanoporation: Transforming the Engineering of Cell-based Therapies
ABSTRACT
Basilard BioTech’s Celletto™ technology platform is poised to transform the engineering of cells used in the $20b Cell and Gene Therapy (therapeutics) industry. The CGT industry is where the “cures” to terrible diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s disease, muscular dystrophy and other genetic disorders will likely originate. Celletto™ introduces “mechanoporation,” a process to capture and porate – with nano needles - cells in their own wells (by the millions) on a small (size of a penny) silicon chip. Cells are moved up and down via constant microfluidic flow from vias at the well bottoms. Celletto™ chips are manufactured on SOI wafers using specialized MEMS fabrication techniques (Deep RIE etching). The nano needles allow for the delivery of exogenous cargo (the therapeutic construct) directly into the nucleus of cells, necessary to exploit the full advantages of true gene editing (i.e. CRISPR). Celletto™ Resolves major bottlenecks in the genome engineering of cells – current methods have major limitations, Works with ALL human cell types (and in future applications, animal, insect and plant cells!), and Enables R&D on new therapies (future “cures”) and improves the GTM timeline for “in-the-pipe” therapies. Celletto™ is the fulcrum of the intersection between the nano engineering of silicon MEMS manufacturing and the cell science of biotech!
BIOGRAPHY
Brynley Lee is an experienced professional CEO (six companies) with decades of experience as a senior executive in the enterprise technology sector, management consulting and as an operations executive/CEO in M&A transactions (both buy and sell side) working alongside investors, owners and investment banks. For the past five years he has been the CEO and co-founder of Basilard Biotech, an early-stage San Diego based biotech company he launched from the University of California Riverside where he was the CEO-in-Residence of the Technology Incubator. Basilard BioTech is developing a MEMS fabricated nano-needle and microfluidics-based nonviral gene delivery technology platform for superior nonviral gene delivery performance in cell and gene therapy. http://www.basilardbiotech.com. The company is currently raising an equity round of financing.
Brynley is a prolific fund raiser, having successfully raised VC, PE and other private capital. As an accomplished leader, he excels at building high performing organizations and successful private companies with top human talent and strong fundamentals. His commercial focus on promoting growth through differentiated competitive advantage and demonstrating clear value propositions to customers, market analysts and investors alike has resulted in a strong track record of value creation. He earned an M.S. in International Political Economy from the University of Southern California.