CoreBiome, a genomics company founded with intellectual property from the University of Minnesota, has formed a partnership with a clinical-stage biotech company near Boston that is aiming to harness the health-care power of gut microbes.
Under an agreement announced this month, CoreBiome – which is based in St. Paul's St. Anthony Park neighborhood – will perform its proprietary "BoosterShot" gene-sequencing service on tens of thousands of biological samples for Kaleido Biosciences in Bedford, Mass.
Kaleido Biosciences, which announced the deal with CoreBiome this month without disclosing financial details, is using computational biology in experiments to discover new compounds that can influence the millions of microbes that live in a healthy human gut.
Researchers have only recently begun to appreciate the human health impacts of gut bacteria, which collectively contain 100 times more genes that the host's genome. The microbiome produces hundreds of chemical compounds that can influence health, and Kaleido is running experiments in the hopes of finding "chemistries" that can affect the microbiome to treat health problems.
CoreBiome's BoosterShot system will be used to analyze Kaleido Biosciences experiments to see which bacteria are present in samples, among other things.
"This partnership represents a validation of our mission at CoreBiome," co-founder and CEO Dan Knights said in a news release. "By integrating cutting-edge genomics and informatics, we can help our partners rapidly scale their microbiome discovery process so they can get products to market faster."
