SBIR/STTR Research Award
Polyketide chiral building blocks and biocatalysts
Award amount
$149,999Program and phase
SBIR · Phase IAward year
2018Award details
- Awarding agency
- Department of Health and Human Services
- Branch
- National Institutes of Health
- Recipient company
- Coala Biosciences
- Proposal award date
- 2018-02-01
- Contract end date
- 2019-07-31
- UEI
- Not reported
- Solicitation number
- PA16-302
- Topic code
- 300
Research abstract
PROJECT SUMMARY
As with most synthetic chemistsCoALA Biosciences is inspired by naturally occurring polyketide assembly
lineswhich synthesize diverse medicines through reactions that generate carbon carbon bonds and precisely
set stereocentersIf chemists were to collaborate with the enzymes in these assembly linessyntheses of
compounds in the drug discovery process would be greatly accelerated and yield larger quantities for
preclinical and clinical studiesCoALA Biosciences will distribute these enzymes and those from related
pathways so that chemists can employ these biosynthetic biocatalystsThey will be sold in easy to use kits so
that scientists who have never handled an enzyme only need to add a mixture from a single container to a
solution of their substrateSince most chemists would prefer to directly purchase the organic fragments
needed in the synthesis of a larger moleculechiral building blocks up to seven carbons long and containing up
to four contiguous stereocenters will be produced through chemoenzymatic synthesis at CoALA Biosciences
and made available on the gram scaleSpecific AimThese chiral building blocksnot available from other
commercial sourceswill be a welcome addition to the limited set of chiral precursors abundant enough to be
utilized in a synthesisOther biocatalysis companiese gChiralVisionCodexisDiscovery BiocatalystsEnzymicalsIris BiotechProzomixSyncoZymesempower specific chemical transformations but do not offer
enzymes from assembly lines evolved to set multiple stereocenters on carbon chains or facilitate the multistep
synthesis of organic compoundsBy refining the techniques employed to generate diketide and triketide chiral
building blocksCoALA Biosciences will seek to access tetraketide and pentaketide fragments during Phase IIA central mission of the company is to make polyketides customizable like oligonucleotides and polypeptidesCoALA Biosciences will also empower hundreds of laboratories studying natural product biosynthesis by
offering a variety of relevant enzymes and enzyme kitsSpecific AimThussimilar to how enzymatic tools
from New England Biolabs can be utilized to engineer DNAversatile enzymes from CoALA Biosciences can
be employed to precisely manipulate polyketides and study the biosynthesis of natural products NARRATIVE
The enzymatic domains of polyketide assembly lines evolved to conduct some of the most sophisticated
synthetic chemistry known to manCoALA Biosciences seeks to unleash their potentialenabling chemists and
other scientists to utilize them as biocatalysts to facilitate synthesis in the drug discovery process as well as the
study of natural product biosynthetic pathwaysChiral building blocks not available elsewhere will be
chemoenzymatically generated at CoALA Biosciences and offered at the gram scale to accelerate synthesis
and improve yields of compounds relevant to human health
Technology keywords
Not reported
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