Gene Writing™

Advancing
Genetic Medicine

Our Technology

Our Gene Writing™ technology advances genetic medicine beyond its current limitations.

We are developing a broad toolkit of Gene Writers to make nearly any type of genomic alteration needed to treat or cure disease. Our technology has the potential to target single point mutations, insertions and deletions, and can even write an entire gene.

Rewriting

Any nucleotide substitution, precise insertions / deletions. True correction of most pathogenic alleles.

Writing Exons

Replace an entire exon at native locus with single nucleotide level specificity.

Writing Whole Genes

Introduce entire genes to restore function or deliver new instructions.

We use RNA Gene Writers™ to write or rewrite the genome

RNA Gene Writers

RNA Gene Writers are composed of a template and a Gene Writer protein that can both be delivered as RNA to change base pairs, make small insertions, deletions or replacements, and integrate entire genes, all without introducing double stranded breaks.

RNA Gene Writers leverage Target Primed Reverse Transcription (TPRT) to engineer the genome. TPRT evolved in certain types of retrotransposons and has four key biochemical functions:
Bind template RNA to form a Gene Writer-template complex
Bind the target DNA sequence in the genome where alteration is needed
Nick single strand of DNA to allow template RNA to bind to the available DNA strand
Reverse transcribe new DNA from the RNA template into the genome
RNA Gene Writers

Engineering RNA Gene Writers

RNA Gene Writers enable the full spectrum of genome editing outcomes.

Tessera engineers these RNA Gene Writers to be modular and designs them to make a wide range of genomic alterations, enabling writing of long messages in the human genome as well as rewriting of short DNA sequences such as single base pair changes to correct disease-causing mutations.

Retro­trans­posons are com­prised of four func­tion­al sub­units to bind an RNA tem­plate, bind a tar­get DNA site in the genome, nick this DNA, and reverse tran­scribe the new tem­plate into the tar­get site.

RNA Gene Writ­ers can be designed to effi­cient­ly insert a small sequence of DNA, down to a sin­gle let­ter of code, where exist­ing DNA needs to be cor­rect­ed or adjust­ed to achieve a ther­a­peu­tic benefit.

RNA Gene Writ­ers can be engi­neered to replace an entire exon with sin­gle nucleotide lev­el speci­fici­ty to offer ther­a­peu­tic cor­rec­tions for muta­tions with­in these cod­ing regions.

RNA Gene Writ­ers can be specif­i­cal­ly pro­grammed to insert a large sequence of DNA such as a gene into the genome.

We use DNA Gene Writing™ to make durable genomic alterations

DNA Gene Writers

We use DNA-based Gene Writing™ technology to write new DNA sequences into the genome using a DNA template to durably alter DNA and offer the potential of a one-time cure

DNA Gene Writers can stably integrate large pieces of DNA, such as entire genes, into the genome without any double stranded breaks.

DNA Gene Writers offer advantages over traditional gene therapy, including:

  • Potential for permanent correction, opening the possibility for pediatric cures
  • Lower doses of AAV vector delivery that can reduce the safety risk and manufacturing burden of a therapy
DNA Gene Writers
Reaching more tissues to treat more diseases
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