This consumer microbiome startup is betting profits on an AI moonshot | Wilnesh News

Seed Health has been making microbiome scientific breakthroughs since its founding in 2015, but its biggest success to date may be turning a profit as a bioscience startup. The popularity of the company’s original product, DS-01, a daily probiotic and prebiotic supplement and its pediatric counterpart, delivered directly to consumers in stylish green containers for 30 days through a subscription model, is now Allowing the company to invest in cutting-edge science related to probiotics and human and environmental health.

“We are one of the few biotech companies to be profitable, and one of the awesome aspects of profitability is that you can reinvest in future innovation and cutting-edge science,” said Ara Katz, co-founder of Seed Health. .” Earlier this year, he was named to the inaugural CNBC Changemakers list.

On Thursday, Seed Health launched CODA, a computational biology platform funded by the profitability of its consumer business. “I’ve been thinking about building a sustainable business model that would allow us to continue pursuing cutting-edge science,” Katz said.

company’s Seed Lab The division is also working on environmental applications of bacteria and microbiomes, such as probiotics for corals and bees, bacteria that break down plastic, and the use of volcanic bacteria in carbon capture.

Offering consumer product subscriptions in one-, three- or six-month increments helps enable the company to bet on riskier scientific discoveries.

“Part of the reason why we went to a subscription model is primarily because it gives you more flexibility and visibility into revenue and really ensures that we can invest for the long term,” Katz said. “Our through line has always been to think about cutting-edge science that we can accelerate and bring to the table. That translates into real-world impact,” she added.

At its core, CODA is a computational tool that leverages artificial intelligence to process large amounts of phenotypic and genomic data from organisms. Human Phenotype Projecta massive collection of human data points spanning decades.

Under the direction of top researchers including Eran Segal of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Eric Topol of The Scripps Research Institute, the Human Phenotype Project has a global sample of more than 100,000 participants cataloged annually for 25 years , which includes various biological measurement indicators such as genome, proteome, transcriptome and microbiome.

Raja Dhir, co-founder of Katz and co-CEO of Seed Health, said CODA and the accompanying dataset will help standardize microbiome science approaches, which has long been an issue in the field. Previous studies based their conclusions on smaller sample sizes and used sampling, analysis and storage methods that were not standardized across the industry.

“What is a healthy control group? You can’t pick a random person and assume they’re healthy or unhealthy. But when you have 10,000 people and you have data on all of them… let’s take the least healthy people and oversee the Seed Health environment study and said Dhir, who has expertise in translating scientific research into product innovation.

For example, Dhir noted that one study of 500 people could conclude that the presence of a certain bacterium predicts things like weight gain, but another study of 500 different people by a different organization or institution might conclude that Completely different conclusion. in conclusion. CODA’s large sample size and large number of data points offer potential for standardization that has never been realized before, Dhir said.

“We’re seeing that the whole probiotic space, and certainly so much of the obsession with gut health, really doesn’t reflect the scientific approach that we really think that we really want to take and pioneer,” Katz added.

Independent experts in the field agree that the science needs to improve. “I saw a lot of probiotics out there and everyone was jumping on the probiotic train, like you’d see probiotic drinks, probiotic foods, and I thought, really? Does it really work? For me For me, as a scientist, “and people who want to improve their health are frustrated. So I think it’s really important to increase the scientific rigor and test and conduct these clinical trials,” said UCLA Associate Professor, the said Dr. Arpana Gupta, co-director of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center. “There’s definitely hope.”

The first applications of CODA are metabolic health, brain health, longevity and menopause, these research areas were chosen because they have been identified as areas of human health for which early CODA data show the strongest evidence.

“Taking these discoveries (from CODA) and ultimately translating them into billions of people who can benefit from them, I think that’s going to be the biggest contribution, and that’s what excites me because without CODA, all of these discoveries ultimately There will be, maybe really good papers, but just papers. So that they can eventually be translated into people,” Siegel said. studied Metabolic health and the connection between microbiome and body composition.

The human phenotyping project included collecting dietary logs and medical histories, as well as blood glucose monitoring records and DEXA (bone densitometry) scans, most of which spanned more than two decades and provided insights into changes in the human microbiome and aging, Segal said.

“This is a big step forward not only in the standardization of data, but in the standardization of different types of data. That’s why it’s called deep phenotyping, because phenotyping means all these things come together to form a person’s phenotype. type,” Dhir said. “That’s what CODA unlocks…things that were just lost in the noise, the noise of the bioinformatics data, are now coming out with such a clear signal.”

Seed Health has been committed to Multiple efforts surrounding pioneering microbiome science For the health of people and the planet, many in the field believe this approach is destined to have wider applications.

“I think the most important area right now is cancer,” said Dr. Joseph Petrosino, professor at Baylor College of Medicine, director of the Center for Metagenomics and Microbiome Research and a member of Seed Health’s scientific advisory board. “Being able to use the microbiome as a diagnostic and potentially therapeutic approach to help cope with various cancer treatments and avoid some of the side effects of these treatments,” Petrosino said.