ArtisanBio Cell Therapies Engineers Talent and Innovation
By: Colorado BioScience Association Date: 06/29/2020
ArtisanBio creates customized cell engineering solutions to solve the most challenging problems in human health applications. By leveraging rapid advances in DNA reading and writing technologies at the interface of engineering and biology, Artisan delivers more efficacious and safe cell products to the market. Their team is built on an environment of innovation and talent.
CBSA President & CEO, Jennifer Jones Paton, asked Tanya Warnecke, ArtisanBio’s Chief Technology and Operating Officer, CBSA’s Key Questions for Life Sciences Innovators.
Q: Tell us about your company or organization.
A: Artisan is building a revolutionary platform for the precision engineering of human cells for next-generation therapeutic applications. The key to our success is our talented and innovative team and their ability to deliver advanced synthetic biology-enabled solutions for improving efficacy and safety for advanced cell therapies.
Artisan labs are located in both Copenhagen, Denmark and at the Fitzsimons Innovation Community in Aurora, which are both fantastic hot spots for biotechnology start-ups.
Q: Describe your team culture. How does your culture shape what your company or organization produces or offers?
A: Dream and Deliver. We put a large emphasis on building an exciting, impactful, and empowering atmosphere for our team to not only execute but also to innovate. We measure our success in creating such a culture by the amount of trust we generate – both internally across Artisan’s team as well as externally with Artisan’s partners.
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: At Artisan, we are focused on developing platform technologies and workflows for custom human cell engineering applications. This includes leveraging cutting-edge DNA reading and writing technologies along with novel functional assays to design and build advanced cells. We have a current primary focus on immune cell engineering, as we see the power of leveraging our platform to superpower the immune system to combat a broad range of diseases.
Q: How will your work save or change lives?
A: One of our public projects is a collaboration with Takeda to develop engineered cell therapies with an eye on indications with high unmet needs. This is an exciting and ambitious program partnering with one of the world leaders in cell therapies that has been very public about their aggressive and strategic pipeline. It’s this focus on saving lives and making a meaningful difference in the world that drives our ambition to build the best cells.
Q: CBSA champions a collaborative life sciences ecosystem because we are #stongertogether. How has being an active participant in our life sciences community supported your success?
A: We have greatly benefited from being a member of CBSA and residing at the Fitzsimons Innovation Community with regards to the basic functions of recruitment and establishing lab space. We have access to world-class expertise at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which has a focus on immunooncology and cell therapy manufacturing. We look forward to growing our Colorado footprint and partnerships and to seeing the biotechnology community continue to rise as a national leader and hot bed for cell therapies.
Thank you to our sponsor: