Seres Therapeutics, Emulate collaborate to support development of novel microbiome therapeutics

Under the terms of the agreement, Seres and Emulate will work to further advance Emulate’s Intestine-Chip platform, a micro-engineered, living-tissue-based system that models the human intestine.

Seres intends to use the technology to identify novel bacteria compositions with therapeutic potential.

“Emulate has developed a highly innovative technology platform consisting of multiple human cell types that may be far more accurate in recreating human gastrointestinal tissue and its interaction with the microbiome than conventional cell culture approaches,” said David Cook, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer of Seres.

“We expect Emulate’s technology platform will enhance our approach for drug discovery and accelerate our efforts to identify promising new microbiome therapeutic candidates for inflammatory bowel disease, other autoimmune or immunological conditions, infectious diseases, and other serious disease states, which may have a microbiome therapeutic based solution.”

“We are extremely pleased to work with Seres, a leader in the development of microbiome therapeutics, and apply our Organs-on-Chips technology to enhance drug discovery in an emerging field, such as the microbiome,” said James Coon, Chief Executive Officer of Emulate.

“The microbiome represents a critically important new area of medicine, and our ‘Intestine-Chip’ is remarkably well suited to evaluate complex biological mechanisms, such as the impact of bacterial compositions on the integrity of the gut barrier and mechanisms of healing in response to inflammation. By combining Emulate’s human-relevant Organs-on-Chips technology with the therapeutic expertise from biopharmaceutical leaders such as Seres, Emulate aims to meaningfully contribute to improving human health.”