Biology across time and space
Programming molecules to better understand and control Life
Programming molecules to better understand and control Life
Biology is held back by destructive techniques that can only capture snapshots, completely missing the dynamic story that is Life. We believe that in order to understand living systems, we must watch their entire journey, with minimal interference.
At Irida, we work to record and steer this story. We program biomolecules to act as reporters and actors at every level: from DNA, to RNA and protein. We engineer them into cells and develop dynamic models to interpret the complex spatiotemporal data they produce.
We are a multidisciplinary team spanning Biology, Biophysics, Mathematics, Chemistry and ML/AI. We're located within one of London's best research institutes, the MRC-LMS.
Role
Role
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Role
They are aptamers that bind to a specific dye, turning on its fluorescence properties, letting us see where it goes within a living cell.
This works in most cell types, eukaryotes & prokaryotes, and is fully compatible with fluorescent proteins and other reporters.
Our aptamers are formaldehyde-resistant and thus perfectly suited for fixed imaging as well.
We can tag any RNA, coding or noncoding. We can figure out where they go, and what they interact with.
Absolutely! We're striving to push the parallelization of this technology to its maximum.
It will be exchanged for an intact dye, thereby making the RNA visible again. Perfect for long-term studies.
