Mammoth Biosciences

Mammoth Biosciences is an American company based in San Francisco founded on June 1, 2017. Mammoth Biosciences uses CRISPR technology to develop bio-sensing technologies for diagnostics in industries such as healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing, and forensics. Their CRISPR platform utilizes two CRISPR proteins: Cas12 and Cas13. The technology being used by Mammoth Bioscience theoretically allows for the detection of any biomarker and/or disease that contains either RNA and/or DNA.

Description of the Mammoth CRISPR platform

Mammoth biosciences uses technology licensed from UC Berkley and has created a credit card strip capable of delivering health diagnostics at the point of care in hospital and home settings. Their diagnostic strip works by dropping the desired fluid sample onto the strip and waiting for panels on the strip to change colour indicating the test is complete. The CRISPR technology is embedded within the strip, and if or when the desired reaction takes place a coloured molecule is released called a reporter molecule. Different reporter molecules can be present and eventually build up into colours that can be seen with the naked eye. The user then takes a photo of the strip after the reaction is complete (approximately taking 30 minutes) using a smart phone application developed my Mammoth Biosciences. Users can see the results of their strip test using the app.

Mammoth Biosciences is partnering with UC San Francisco to develop a diagnostic test to identify people infected with coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (previously called 2019-nCoV). The new coronavirus strain, identified December 31, 2019 is responsible for an outbreak of disease called COVID-19 that began in Wuhan, China in December, 2019 and was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). For current testing samples are shipped to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where the test can take six or more hours to complete. The test being developed by Mammoth Biosciences is expected to take one or two hours and be completed at the doctor’s office. The test would involve a nasal swab being placed in a tube with the CRISPR-Cas system and using a color-changing strip of paper to check for a positive or negative test result. Their test, uses CRISPR-Cas12a-based lateral flow assay and RT-LAMP technology and gives results in less than 40 minutes was validated in patient respiratory swab RNA extracts and results were published in April, 2020.

Mammoth Biosciences has received a disclosed amount of $23min venture capital funding from Mayfield, NFX, 8VC, AME Cloud, Wireframe, Kairos, and Boom Capital.