Understand our Platform’s innovative capabilties
We are actively exploring commercial partnerships. Stay tuned for more details in the months ahead.
Our platform is cell line agnostic; we have developed CHO and bovine cell lines that partners can utilize, or they can use their own.
There are thousands of light-sensitive proteins, and they are activated all over the spectrum, but most exist in red and blue. We are focused on a core set of these wavelengths currently and will continue to expand this control set.
Currently, we can engineer two to three orthogonal, light-controlled specific functionalities into a single cell line. It’s possible to expand this if we invest more time/resources. The functionality limit is case specific and solutions are customizable. Functionalities that are needed at the same time can be controlled simultaneously with the same wavelength.
Yes! We are eager to expand our team with people passionate about creating the future of biology. Visit our jobs board if you’re interested in joining us, and keep an eye on our LinkedIn for posted job opportunities.
Please contact partners@prolific-machines.com to learn more about co-developing the future of biology with us. A member of our team will quickly be in touch to explore opportunities.
Our photomolecular platform brings together genetic tools, hardware, and closed-loop software to precisely control and optimize cellular behavior to more efficiently produce superior bio-product solutions across wide-ranging applications, from food to pharmaceuticals.
Methods currently used to make bio-products are limited to imprecise, inefficient, and expensive control levers, like temperature, chemicals, and proteins to indirectly control cells. Prolific’s platform brings together safe and effective tools to unlock unparalleled, direct control, and precision.
Yes, safety is a key benefit of our platform. Consistency is also a major advantage, which further increases the safety of our technology and process. Light is an abundant, highly controllable, and predictable input that has played a role in cellular control in countless organisms since the dawn of time.
Our process uses light, which acts as a signal to control the light-sensitive proteins (LSP) and direct cellular behavior. We procure these from a wide range of natural sources, including widely consumed plant foods like cabbage, mustard greens, and spirulina.
We use ‘non-ionizing’ light at relatively low intensities in our process, which means it doesn’t carry enough energy to harm living cells. It is safe for use in the production of both food and non-food products.
Living organisms have the ability to sense light because of light sensitive proteins (LSP). These naturally occurring proteins are found everywhere, from plants and bacteria to human retinas, and exist to detect and respond to light. They can do this very quickly to cause action in cells within seconds.
Proteins are at the heart of everything a cell does, from perceiving signals from other cells to switching genes on or off. By attaching LSPs to proteins that you want to control within the cell, Prolific makes it possible to precisely control subcellular biology using light. When met with light, which acts as a signal, these LSP can precisely control key functions within cells.
Prolific unlocks dynamic control by pulsating light in specific patterns, intensities, and wavelengths to activate cellular functions when and where it matters most, which is a gamechanger for biomanufacturing.
We’ll be able to share more details on pricing as we commercialize partnerships across biopharmaceuticals and advanced nutrition, but one of the key benefits of our photomolecular platform is cost efficiency due to our use of light, which is the cheapest possible input into biology.
Prolific has brought together leaders in the field of optogenetics, which uses light to control biological processes, to build upon its tools. Its photomolecular biology platform is the first to commercially harness optogenetics, alongside proprietary hardware and AI, to bring diverse applications to market across biopharmaceuticals and advanced nutrition.
Light travels incredibly efficiently. The way light penetrates cell cultures depends on a number of factors, including wavelength, cell density, and media conditions. Using our AI-powered, closed-loop sensing and illumination system, we make continuous adjustments to deliver the desired light to the cells. Before we build a light delivery system for a partner’s application at scale, we use simulations and small-scale experiments to tweak our existing illuminator designs to fit your reactors, process, and target performance metrics, and budget.
We strive for optimal control of cells at every scale, which is why we do extensive modeling and simulation to predict the illumination needs at different scales. But don’t take our word for it: Minami et Al. recently published an independent simulation study that shows effective stimulation of bioreactors with sizes of up to 80,000L at maximum cell densities.
At this stage, we’re focused on co-development partnerships, providing select partners with limited early access to our groundbreaking technology.
For proof-of-concept studies, we generally follow an R&D fee-for-service model, with clearly defined project milestones and associated costs.
For projects closer to commercialization, we offer a more flexible approach, which can include technical milestones, phased payments, and discussions around royalty payments for products produced with our photomolecular platform. Additionally, we can negotiate exclusive licenses for specific product categories, ensuring that your investment is fully protected and aligned with your long-term strategic goals.
Our business model varies from licensing the technology to joint ventures and offering customized optogenetics solutions or services to partners in the biotech and pharma industries. This flexibility allows us to adapt our approach to meet the specific requirements and strategic objectives of each partner.
While cultured meat is one possible, and exciting, output from our process, it’s one of many across biopharmaceuticals and advanced nutrition.
Prolific Machines is supported by leading investors, including Ki Tua Fund CVC of The Fonterra Co-operative Group, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Mayfield, SOSV, Shorewind Capital, Darco Capital, In-Q-Tel, Conti Ventures, and several others.
A long history of safe consumption exists for light sensitive proteins (LSP), which are the proteins that power our process. We procure these from a wide range of natural sources, including widely consumed plant foods like cabbage, mustard greens, and spirulina. We have embedded safety controls in every step of our process.
We are already in contact with regulators and plan to collaborate proactively and often as we work to commercialize this new technology alongside our partners.
Photosynthesis is the process by which plants and other organisms convert the energy of (sun)light into chemical energy to power their activities. Prolific’s platform isn’t using light as an energy source, but as but as a signal to control cellular function via LSP (or molecular switches), with far-reaching applications from food to life-saving pharmaceuticals.
Our process is incredibly efficient. Unlike photosynthesis that requires a constant and very large amount of light, we leverage efficient quantities of light only when needed in a closed-loop system to turn cellular mechanisms “on,” “off,” “up,” or “down” to control cell functions in a way that’s non-invasive, tunable, and reversible.
No, we use light doses well below the phototoxic threshold to ensure cell health.
We have experimented with intentionally increasing light intensity and duration to induce phototoxicity, but these conditions were far outside our operational range. By tuning the activation threshold and kinetics in line with desired behavior, we can ensure that light levels stay below the phototoxic threshold, even at scale.
We will be announcing commercial partners in the months ahead. Stay tuned…
We’re co-developing the future of biology with innovators and leaders across biopharmaceuticals and advanced nutrition. Examples include proteins found in supplements and infant formula, antibodies to treat diseases, whole cuts of cultured meat, higher fidelity disease models, and other innovations never before possible.
Please contact us at comms@prolific-machines.com.
Light is a universal input, understandable by both biological and mechanical systems, allowing AI to steer and optimize biology.
AI can control our process in real time, gathering data along the way. Every time our platform successfully produces a target molecule, it learns from this data to create efficiencies, so our technology is continuously improving.
We procure LSP from natural sources like cabbage, spirulina, and mustard plants and genetically attach these proteins to targets of interest within the cell in order to control sub-cellular processes with light.
We’d love to connect with qualified investors passionate about joining us on our journey. Please contact investors@prolific-machines.com.
We believe light is the superior way to control biology. Where existing biological controls rely on changes to the growth environment or expensive, inefficient, and imprecise molecular tools like chemicals and proteins to indirectly control cells, we use light for specific, precise, and 100% reproducible cellular control.