Genethon, the AFM-Telethon research and development center, announced last month its collaboration with WhiteLab Genomics. This partnership aims to accelerate the development of innovative gene therapies thanks to artificial intelligence. WhiteLab Genomics’ Catalyst platform will be used by Genethon’s teams to design essential components for the development of gene therapy products.

AI as a solution to gene therapy problems

The essential components contained in gene therapy products on which this platform will focus are capsids and vectors. The use of current vectors in gene therapy is subject to limitations: they are derived from adeno-associated viruses (AAV) to which 30% to 40% of the population is immune. In addition, researchers are currently forced to design a large number of vectors in order to use them to target a specific tissue, a difficult task.

It is to get around this difficulty that the use of artificial intelligence can be decisive. It could allow for the production of optimized vectors in smaller quantities that would be much more targeted to the tissues to be reached. This would maximize the effects of the therapy.

A specific platform

It is thanks to the Catalyst platform developed by WhiteLab Genomics that Genethon researchers will be able to take a further step towards the improvement of gene therapies. The machine learning algorithms present in the platform will help researchers to produce new generations of less immunogenic and more specific vectors in order to better target tissues.

David Del Bourgo, CEO and co-founder of WhiteLab Genomics talks about his desire to be involved in the field of gene therapy:

“France is a breeding ground for innovation in this field and we want to help research teams, in France and around the world, to easily use these extremely complex biological datasets and assist them to enable optimized developments more quickly.”

Dr Giuseppe Ronzitti, head of the collaboration for Genethon highlights the upcoming use of the WhiteLab Genomics platform:

“The tools developed by WhiteLab will allow us to review thousands of sequences and propose new innovative combinations. Our objective is to develop a new generation of more specific AAV vectors and to allow the emergence of new treatments for neuromuscular diseases.

Translated from Généthon et WhiteLab Genomics vont collaborer afin d’utiliser l’IA dans le cadre de la thérapie génique