Fauna Bio

We’re excited to announce a strategic collaboration agreement with Eli Lilly and Company to apply Fauna's Convergence™ artificial intelligence (AI) platform to support preclinical drug discovery efforts in #obesity. The two teams will collaborate to identify multiple drug targets. 🧬🧬🧬 "We are very excited to enter into this collaboration with Lilly, which showcases the power of our Convergence™ AI platform to rapidly identify novel targets for complex disease areas of high unmet need," said Ashley Zehnder, CEO & Co-Founder, Fauna Bio. "Lilly is a leader in obesity treatment, and our approach enables and accelerates discovery across different disease areas and modalities for our partners, who bring deep expertise in drug development." Ruth Gimeno, Ph.D., group vice president, diabetes, obesity and cardiometabolic research at Lilly, added: "Fauna Bio brings a unique approach to the discovery of novel targets for obesity. We look forward to working with the Fauna Bio team to realize the value of their platform and discover more effective treatments for patients with obesity." Read the release: 👇👇👇 https://lnkd.in/e8CtkrBb #drugdiscovery #biotech #AI #obesity

Thanks BBC News for covering Lara Lewington’s recent visit to our offices for her documentary series on the brain. 🧠🧠 “Fauna Bio, a biotech company on the outskirts of San Francisco, is collecting data on ground squirrels during and after hibernation. In this state of torpor, as it is known, the squirrels’ body temperature drops and their metabolic rate is reduced to just 1% of normal. During this time, they appear to be able to regrow neurons and remake the connections their brains had lost. The company’s aim is to try and create drugs to replicate this process in humans, without them needing to spend half the year underground. Even if some may long for that.” Read the full article: 👇👇 https://lnkd.in/gbbq_4tu

'Mind Over Matter'. My brain ageing documentary is here. If you have an age and a brain, do watch! Featuring what we can learn from the residents of the Blue Zone that is Loma Linda, Bryan Johnson's newest experiments, human lessons from animal hibernation, and the latest science from Stanford, Berkeley and University of Southern California. Online: BBC iPlayer: https://lnkd.in/eMuAxWEc On TV: BBC One on Breakfast (short version) 7.45am Sunday UK: BBC News 7.30pm tonight / 1.30pm tomorrow International BBC News times: https://lnkd.in/eHCGexgV Huge thank you to all involved: the residents of Loma Linda, Andrei Irimia, Jordan Shlain, MD, Bryan Johnson, Owen Phillips, Ph.D., Ashley Zehnder / Fauna Bio, Leanne Williams, Matthew Walker, PhD, all the comms people juggling in the background, and the squirrels for coming out to play when we needed them. Also to the small but perfectly formed production team: cameraman Ben Derico, editor John Matthews, exec Clair Stevens, and of course to Monica Soriano and Dominic Ball for letting us loose on my vision.

Biologists today aren't limited to working with one of the few model organisms. Advances like precise gene editing tools allow them to tinker with previously understudied organisms. Research on non-model organisms will yield insights that will improve human health and environment as well as scale up synthetic biology. For instance, the thirteen-lined squirrel can withstand body temperatures as low as 4-8 °C during hibernation and could hold clues to reversing cellular damage in diseases. For my latest in SynBioBeta, I write on non-model synthetic biology. https://lnkd.in/gG7ksCK9

SynBioBeta reporter Sachin Rawat spoke with our Chief Scientific Officer Katharine Grabek about how "Non-Model Organisms Expand the Repertoire of Synthetic Biology." Synthetic biology researchers are turning to non-model organisms to unlock new possibilities for environmental sustainability and human health. Fauna Bio performs single-cell transcriptomics on tissues from the thirteen-lined ground squirrel, an animal that can hibernate for over six months a year. During hibernation, these squirrels can withstand body temperatures as low as 4-8°C, resulting in cellular damage. Insights into how they do this could offer hints into how to reverse cellular damage in human diseases. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eybNMhXK

Longevity SF's next event is this Tuesday June 25th! Featuring Ashley Zehnder and Nicholas Hertz, Ph.D. We will also have nutty pudding and other healthy bites styled by Chef Julius Ritter. Big thanks to BioAge Labs for sponsoring and MBC BioLabs for providing their beautiful event space. RSVP: https://lu.ma/g57i0xir

Our CTO Linda Goodman was on a panel today at the Future of Bay Area Biotech event hosted by San Francisco Business Times. Thanks Ron Leuty for moderating the panel! Looking forward to the next event.

Meet Ashley Zehnder from Fauna Bio discussing ‘Exploring Innovative Technologies in the Fight Against Obesity’ at the Obesity Medicine Summit 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts on August 6 - 7. Join them and others at https://lnkd.in/dMSp7han

Our Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder Katharine Grabek spoke on a panel discussing #Increasing #Healthspan at #BIO2024 in San Diego recently. 🧬🧬🧬 Looking forward to seeing everyone at the next event! Great meeting.

Meet Ashley Zehnder from Fauna Bio discussing ‘Exploring Innovative Technologies in the Fight Against Obesity’ at the Obesity Medicine Summit 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts on August 6 - 7. Join them and others at https://lnkd.in/dMSp7han