Draft:Monod Bio

Monod Bio is an American biotechnology company based in Seattle, Washington. The company is developing novel clinical diagnostics and biotechnology tools using AI-powered de novo protein design.

History
The company was founded by Daniel Adriano Silva Manzano, David Shoultz, and Alfredo Quijano Rubio as a spin-out from the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design and the lab of Dr. David Baker. Dr. Baker is a co-founder and close advisor.

It was originally housed in the CoMotion Labs biotech incubator at University of Washington before relocating to a separate facility in South Lake Union. In 2022, Monod Bio completed a seed round financing of $25 million dollars with Matrix Capital Management as a lead investor and participation from the Global Health Investment Corporation Cerano Management, The Washington Research Foundation, Boom Capital Ventures, Sahsen Ventures, and Pack Ventures.

In August 2023, Alfredo Quijano Rubio received Health and Business Insider's 30 under 40 award for his work with the company.

Research
Monod Bio utilizes the "Rosetta" protein engineering software developed at the Institute for Protein Design to develop biosensors. These sensors emit bioluminescent signals in the presence of an analyte, which was showcased in a Nature publication in 2021. The two-protein (known as lucCage and lucKey), modular system emits light when the proteins bind, causing an attached luciferase to emit light.

In December 2022, the lucCage-lucKey biosensor system was featured in a new article in Advanced Materials, where the Baker Lab--featuring CSO, Alfredo Quijano Rubio--collaborated with the Silk Lab at Tufts University. This collaboration theorized the incorporation of the biosensors into silk fibers, allowing for detection of proteins upon contact with the fibers. In February 2023, Monod Bio announced a publication in Nature introducing its de novo protein design platform for the creation of its novel luciferase, LuxSit.