PORTFOLIO
PORTFOLIO COMPANIES
COMPANY PROFILE
Contributing to drug discovery, agricultural seed development and material production through DNA / RNA manipulation technologies.
EditForce Inc. develops novel drugs, seeds (for agriculture), and useful substances through nucleic acids (DNA / RNA) manipulation technologies. UTEC has been involved in EditForce since its inception in 2015 when it was established by KISCO Ltd. and Takahiro Nakamura (now Professor at Kyushu University) in 2015. EditForce provides a proprietary alternative option to genome editing as well as a novel tool for versatile editing of RNA molecules on a genomic scale. This technology is called ‘transcriptome editing’ based on pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) protein engineering technologies that Dr. Nakamura invented. At EditForce, a large family of plant-specific PPR proteins related to plant immunity is researched in order to discover DNA/RNA recognition mechanisms of PPR proteins which then can be applied in the form of design/programming tools to the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries.
COMPANY STORY
Origin
EditForce was founded based on the PPR genome editing technique invented by Takahiro Nakamura, Associate Professor at Kyushu University in 2015. EditForce aims to revolutionize the genome editing industry, which has been dominated by prior technologies such as ZFN, TALEN, and CRISPR.
Strength
PPR technology has the ability to recognize both DNA and RNA. It is the world's first genome editing tool that can edit both DNA and RNA.
UTEC’s value add
UTEC has introduced management executives and external partners to EditForce and supports business planning as well as supporting potential IPO and M&A processes.
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DNA/RNA modification by PPR
