Gene regulators are responsible for interpreting the human genome by switching genes on and off at the correct time in the correct cells, and their malfunction is common across many diseases. While our tools to measure and manipulate DNA itself have matured (DNAseq, CRISPR), we lack effective tools for studying gene regulators.

As a result, gene regulators are often passed over in favor of protein families with established experimental approaches, leading to few drug candidates for this target class. There are over 2,200 proteins in this family, yet less than 2% of them are targeted with FDA-approved drugs. Many of these approved drugs were discovered by serendipity, so we instead are pursuing a systematic approach for the discovery and development of gene regulator drugs.

Our platform measures a drug’s ability to disrupt a gene regulator within its natural, non-engineered cellular environment. Furthermore, a single experiment using the platform measures activity for hundreds of gene regulators simultaneously, providing information on in-cell drug activity and specificity in a single experiment. To accomplish this, we combine innovative cell processing with high-sensitivity quantitative proteomics and advanced downstream analytics.