Our Science
Our Science
Remapping the genomic landscape
At ProFound™ Therapeutics, we start by looking through the lens of the translatome.
The Translatome
What if more of the human genome were translated into proteins?
DNA sequences found in the human genome are converted into RNA transcripts, which are then translated into functional proteins. The decades-long understanding in biology is that a mere 2% of the 3 billion base pairs that make up human genomic DNA represent protein-coding sequences. Yet, in recent years, it has been established that a staggering 80% of the DNA is actually transcribed into RNA.
So, we asked, ‘What if more RNAs were being translated into proteins?’ Tackling this question gave us insights into the translatome, the full compendium of RNA sequences that are being translated into proteins, which we believe holds the secrets to a multitude of potential therapeutic proteins and drug targets.
What We Do
DISCOVERING NOVEL PROTEINS AND ILLUMINATING THEIR BIOLOGY TO GENERATE FIRST-IN-CLASS MEDICINES
Our proprietary ProFoundryTM Platform is designed to rapidly mine for novel drugs and drug targets hidden within the expanded proteome – and to do so at a scale enabled by advanced computational and predictive machine learning models, reducing the time for target identification and validation by years.
Discover: We have industrialized the use of RiboSeq at scale to identify all RNAs actively being translated into proteins from any region of the genome, including regions not previously known to encode mRNA and proteins.
Implicate: Through insights from over 1 trillion data points, ProFound’s ever-expanding database has catalogued tens of thousands of novel proteins, including insights into their functionality, connectivity, and roles in health and disease. This ProFoundry Atlas reflects known information across dimensions - from the genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, and translatome. Proprietary AI/ML algorithms predict protein function and therapeutic relevance, providing an instantaneous in silico assessment of the potential for each discovered protein to be a novel drug or drug target.
Validate: Leveraging a suite of high and medium-throughput experimental assays that rapidly define a protein's biological functions, ProFound selects the most promising proteins for progression as therapeutic drugs or drug targets.
ProFoundry™ Platform unearths a rich source of protein factors and targets, illuminating biology to generate new medicines
What we found
The new protein factors and targets we’ve revealed using the ProFoundry™ Platform span a diversity of therapeutically impactful functional classes, including:
- Novel genetic drivers of disease
- Immune modulators
- Circulating metabolic factors
- Oncology targets
- …and more