NAPIGEN Completes $7.85 Million Funding Round to Advance Its Mitochondrial and Chloroplast Gene Editing Technology
Summary
Funds will be used to develop hybrid seed technology in wheat and rice through gene editing of plant mitochondriaThe Grantham Foundation and RA Capital Management led the round. NAPIGEN also has received funding from the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation and the NIH-SBIR program to apply its technology to gene editing of human mitochondrial DNA.Though CRISPR technology has been widely used to engineer nuclear DNA in many organisms, mitochondria and chloroplaststhe powerhouses of cellshave proved harder to target with this approach because of the challenges of delivering RNA or DNA into organelles. NAPIGENs mission is to harness the potentials of organelles to make our society a better place to live.About NAPIGENNAPIGEN is a biotechnology company that addresses novel genome engineering of various organisms such as plants, microbes, and animals. Its technology targets mitochondria and chloroplasts, two special cellular components that harbor their own DNA and are important to create energy for cells to grow. A group of accomplished scientists, entrepreneurs, and investors founded the company including Dr. Hajime Sakai, Dr. Jay Keasling, Dr. Ganesh Kishore, and Dr. Roger Wyse.