Article from dec 2022 12 months ago25 Nov 2023 16:24
inside a science park lab next to the university of york, two clusters of robots are busy moving clear plates with mechanical arms as they screen many millions of molecules. the machines need only 24 hours to complete work that would usually take teams of human scientists several days.
the lab is run by aptamer group, a small biotech firm that has quietly carved out a leading position in the development of a highly sought after technology. its scientists create aptamers – fragments of dna, also known as synthetic antibodies, that are used to diagnose illnesses, or to deliver drugs to their target to fight a range of diseases including cancer.
“an aptamer is a short synthetic piece of dna or rna that folds into three-dimensional shapes and sticks to targets of interest,” dr david bunka, the company’s chief technical officer, explains on our lab tour. the word comes from the latin “aptus”, to fit.
as the aptamers, or nucleic acid molecules, pass through a suite of hi-tech labs, they are tested according to how well they bind to proteins or other cellular targets. the best binders are then trimmed and checked by the quality control team before the final product is made on a larger scale, purified, and put into tubes for packing and shipping.
the business counts three-quarters of the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies among its clients, including japan’s largest drugmaker, takeda. it is working with the uk’s top drugs firm, astrazeneca, on kidney disease treatments; with cancer research uk to develop aptamers as targeted treatments for chronic myelomonocytic leukaemia, a rare type of blood cancer; with south korea’s pinotbio to develop precision chemotherapy treatments; and with gene therapeutics in the us to create gene therapies.
aptamer group’s £81m flotation on london’s junior aim market last year turned its two founders into paper millionaires with a combined fortune of £33m. the company is rapidly expanding. it has just moved into a new headquarters in the york science park that has doubled its lab space – but is struggling to recruit more scientists, in part because of a lack of affordable housing in york, and the difficulty of hiring europeans following brexit.
the group has developed a test that can detect covid-19 in wastewater with the environmental technology group deepverge and are now pursuing tests for other contaminants. it dropped a partnership with mologic to develop a rapid lateral flow covid test last year because it realised the market was “saturated”.
dr arron tolley, chief executive of aptamer group
dr arron tolley, the chief executive of aptamer group, which has grown to employ about 60 people. photograph: christopher t****nd/the guardian
the business was founded in 2008 by bunka, a molecular biologist, and dr arron tolley, an early school leaver with adhd, who became a bricklayer and later completed a doctorate in biophysics and molecular biology. they met at leeds
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