Moonwalk Biosciences

We’re excited to announce the launch of Moonwalk Biosciences, a genomic medicine company pioneering precision epigenetic medicines, with $57 million in financing from Alpha Wave Global, ARCH Venture Partners, Future Ventures, GV (Google Ventures), Khosla Ventures and YK Bioventures. By targeting the epigenetic code – the software of the genome – Moonwalk aims to reprogram cells to their healthy state, fundamentally enabling a new approach to how therapies are discovered and developed. Moonwalk is the first company that couples an epigenetic discovery platform with precise engineering – opening up the epigenome as a new target space for complex diseases. Learn more here: https://moonwalk.bio/ Read our press release: https://lnkd.in/gcuF7Umy More info about us in: WSJ: https://lnkd.in/e5_6R2y2 STAT: https://lnkd.in/eViTRJqE Endpoints News: https://lnkd.in/eSySAyWd Biopharma Dive: https://lnkd.in/ei8wKM2n

Great to catch up with Ron Leuty at San Francisco Business Times at #BIO2024: When Moonwalk Biosciences Inc. CEO Alex Aravanis MD PhD started his presentation at the BIO convention in San Diego earlier this week, he saw a standing-room-only crowd, and after his 15-minute talk he was peppered with questions. In more formal meetings with potential partners, Aravanis faced more questions. "I think there's a lot of people who are curious about (epigenetics)" — how DNA modifications can be passed cell to cell — "curious about the capabilities, how mature it is," Aravanis said. "In the partnering meetings, there're folks who have an immediate use for it, and there are folks who said, 'Look, we reached out to you because we realized this is an exciting new area.'" The ability to spread a company's scientific message with hundreds, if not thousands, of people in a few days is why companies come to the Biotechnology Innovation Organization's annual convention, which closes today in San Diego. More than 20 Bay Area life sciences companies were scheduled among the scores making formal presentations in tiny "theaters" on the convention's exhibit floor, such as South San Francisco's Moonwalk, or in BIO's "Startup Stadium." Read the article (subscription required): https://lnkd.in/eTEdgDEa

Sharing some highlights from our week at #BIO2024. 🧬🧬🧬 Our CEO Alex Aravanis MD PhD presenting on #EpiRead and #EpiWrite technology and also discussing the science behind increasing healthspan on a panel discussion. Great meeting everyone this week!

Curious about what we've planned for you at AIDBio 2024? 📅✨ Our stellar lineup of speakers will cover the latest trends and challenges in digital biology, featuring topics like ‘Machine Reasoning for Drug Discovery’ and ‘AI Digital Biology Lab Ecosystem’ Get ready for a morning packed with learning and discovery at the Guggenheim Theater on June 3rd. Don't miss insights from: Pr. Trey Ideker, UCSD Alex Aravanis MD PhD, MD, PhD - CEO Moonwalk Biosciences, Co-Founder of GRAIL, former CTO at Illumina Mike Varney - TNL Advisor, former Head of R&D at Genentech Abraham Heifets - CEO at Atomwise Nick Edwards, PhD - CEO at Potato MyPhuong Le, PhD - President and Cofounder at Aquillius Reza Rassool - Chair at Kwaai Ash Damle - CTO/AI at TNL, MIT Jeff Guise - Partner at Eversheds Sutherland Khai Minh Pham MD, PhD (AI) - CEO and Founder of ThinkingNode Life Check out our full agenda and snag your tickets here: https://lnkd.in/gFVamash John (Bobby) Goulding, Chuck Merryman, Paolo Amedeo, William Dale, PE, Eden Romm, Stefano Ghirlanda, Aline “Ali” Betancourt, Ekaterina (Kate) Migunova, PhD, The Social Coyote

The Moonwalk team will be on-site at #BIO2024 next month in San Diego! ☀️☀️ Our CEO Alex Aravanis MD PhD will be doing a company presentation on Monday, June 3 at 3:15 pm PT in Company Presentation Theater 1. Let’s connect in the BIO One-on-One Partnering System. See you all there!

Moonwalk will be on-site at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy 2024 conference this week. 🧬🧬 Check out our presentation: Title: The integration of high-resolution, genome-scale epigenetic mapping with epigenetic editing technology enables precise epigenetic engineering of cells Presenter: Dr. Rigel Kishton, Head of Immunology Research Date/Time: Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 12:00 PM ET Session Title: Epigenetic Editing and RNA Editing Presentation Room: Exhibit Hall Read the full release: https://lnkd.in/eGCuXChq

Moonwalk will be on-site at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy 2024 conference this week. 🧬🧬 Check out our presentation: Title: The integration of high-resolution, genome-scale epigenetic mapping with epigenetic editing technology enables precise epigenetic engineering of cells Presenter: Dr. Rigel Kishton, Head of Immunology Research Date/Time: Wednesday, May 8, 2024, 12:00 PM ET Session Title: Epigenetic Editing and RNA Editing Presentation Room: Exhibit Hall Read the full release: https://lnkd.in/eGCuXChq

Thanks Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News for speaking with us ahead of #ASGCT24! 🧬🧬 Moonwalk Biosciences launched earlier this year, crashing the epigenome editing bash. So it is not surprising that the company’s name is not inspired by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s adventures on the moon but rather by a 1980s dance move popularized and associated with Michael Jackson—who did not invent the gliding backslide. “The relation to science is that when you think about the epigenome, we think about changes over time and with disease,” said Alex Aravanis MD PhD, CEO and co-founder of Moonwalk Biosciences. “The epigenome of a healthier, younger cell often tells us how we want to modify it. The concept of the dance is that sometimes to move forward, you have to move backward. That’s the analogy to the epigenome—that you actually have to go back in time towards a genome that’s in a healthier and younger state.” At this year’s #ASGCT, Aravanis said that the team at Moonwalk is excited to show how they intend to do that dance behind data for their two major platform components: the EpiRead and EpiWrite technologies. Read the article by Jonathan D. Grinstein, PhD: https://lnkd.in/et7TRFCX

The next generation of AI biotechs is here. Can they deliver on the hype? Meet the trio of AI biotechs with huge funding, A-list science and tech stars, and computing horsepower: Generate:Biomedicines, Isomorphic Labs, and the newly launched of Xaira Therapeutics The goals are similar to the first generation of AI-focused biotechs that started a decade ago, like Recursion, BenevolentAI, and Exscientia. But this time, experts told us, these startups are launching with far more sophisticated AI models, data generation capabilities, and compute power at their fingertips. “I feel like we’ve turned the corner,” Alex Aravanis MD PhD, CEO of Moonwalk Biosciences and former chief technology officer of Illumina, told me. “We have had that moment where the models are good enough, the datasets are good enough,” he added. “They can do things that we could never do before.” Check out the latest from Ryan Cross and myself for Endpoints News, featuring comments from Xaira CEO Marc Tessier-Lavigne, IPD's David Baker, Insilico Medicine CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, Generate's R&D head Alexandra Snyder, MD, Khosla Ventures' Nessan Bermingham, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Nicholas Polizzi & more:

We’re excited to present data highlighting our #EpiRead and #EpiWrite technologies for the first time at the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) 2024 Conference, held May 7-11, 2024, in Baltimore, Maryland. 🧬🧬 Our comprehensive epigenome engineering platform, EpiRead and EpiWrite, includes both read-and-write technologies, to develop potentially curative therapies for various diseases at the root cause level. “Moonwalk is the first company to perform seven simultaneous edits using its epigenetic editing platform EpiWrite,” said Mike Varney, Ph.D., advisor to Moonwalk. “This enables a level of multiplexing that far exceeds the current standard to enable targeting of multiple biological pathways or multiple genes within a single pathway. Combined with EpiRead, which uniquely profiles the epigenetic landscape of cellular states, this expands our ability to understand and control gene regulation and cellular function for complex diseases.” Read the full release: https://lnkd.in/eGCuXChq