Esperovax and Ginkgo Bioworks announced a partnership to develop circular RNAs (circRNAs) for a variety of therapeutic applications. Initially, Ginkgo and Esperovax will work to develop circRNAs harboring payloads to specifically target colorectal cancer by inducing cell death only in cancerous cells. CircRNAs represent an emerging, powerful mechanism for delivering therapeutics and vaccines due to their protein-coding potential and improved stability in comparison to their linear mRNA counterparts.

This partnership aims to further exploit circRNAs by developing a novel mechanism to facilitate RNA circularization specifically in colorectal cancer cells. This would result in extended expression of the toxic payload solely in cancer cells, reducing toxicity and resulting side effects from the death of normal cells. By combining omics datasets, computational approaches, and high-throughput screening capabilities, Ginkgo will design, build and screen large numbers of RNA designs that leverage and optimize Esperovax's novel mechanism of cell-type specific circularization.

Through its growing portfolio of programs in cell and gene therapy and RNA therapeutics, and recent acquisition of Circularis, Ginkgo is uniquely positioned to enable new solutions in these areas with circRNA.