UChicago Microbiome Startups Come Together Under New Company to Amplify Results

32 Biosciences is advancing field-defining research to build clinically useful, validated, precision tools to diagnose and correct Dysbiosis (microbiome imbalance).

Two University of Chicago startups are now operating under a parent company, 32 Biosciences – with a shared goal to revolutionize health care through advances in microbiome science.

The name is pronounced “three squared biosciences” in homage to its three scientific founders and microbiome medicine experts: University of Chicago professors John Alverdy and Eugene Chang, and assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Joe Pierre, who completed a post-doctorate fellowship at UChicago under the mentorship of Chang.

Combined, their innovative microbiome research and development has been supported by $119 million in National Institutes of Health grants and resulted in more than 650 publications. “Squared,” their work “amplifies results, aligning with the company’s mission to define and improve gut health through microbiome-based interventions,” said CEO Peter Farmakis.

The company was formalized in April as the parent to two wholly owned subsidiaries, Covira and Gateway Biome, established in 2018 and 2022, respectively.

Both have participated in various programming opportunities at the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation over the years.

“The University of Chicago is foundational to the development of our company,” said Farmakis, who previously held the same title at both Covira and Gateway. Argonne National Labs’ relationship with the University also has played an important role in the company’s progress, he noted.

Specifically, the team has leveraged the core facilities at UChicago’s Duchossois Family Institute (DFI) to produce one of its lead assets, GB-0001, an advanced diagnostic management tool that aims to provide a standardized measure of functional gut microbiome health.

Chang helped establish and administer most of the microbiome core facilities at the University, and both he and Alverdy hold a leadership position at the DFI.

Said Chang, “None of this would have been possible without the DFI,” which recently expanded its microbiome research capabilities with a cGMP facility, the first of its kind at an academic institution. “The DFI has created these very useful, affordable core facilities,” he added. “They have the capacity, capabilities, and expertise.”

If approved, GB-0001 would help health care professionals monitor and ultimately restore gut health with medication and nutrition – and aid them with the knowledge of whether or not something is working.

“Nothing like this existed before Gateway,” noted Chang, speaking to the diagnostic management tool and its ability to provide a quantitative assessment of a patient’s gut microbiome.

32 Biosciences will use the tool to support the development of microbiome-based interventions for disease prevention and treatment such as Covira’s lead therapeutic asset, CS-0003. The proprietary solution is a prescription medication that coats the gastrointestinal tract with a mucus-like shield to enhance its barrier function and stop bacteria migration to prevent post-surgical infections.

“Despite emerging evidence to the contrary, most experts in the field continue to believe that postoperative infections are due to some type of breach in sterile technique where a bacterial pathogen somehow contaminates an otherwise sterile operative field,” said Alverdy. However, as work from his lab demonstrates, most bacteria that cause a surgical site infection arise from within the gut microbiome.

“We are preventing bacteria from escaping the gut microbiome by disincentivizing their exit with phosphate and physically shielding their escape so they cannot travel to the operative site and cause an infection,” added Farmakis. Initial work with this idea involved multiple efforts by faculty across the University of Chicago, including Matt Tirrell at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

In the next year, 32 Biosciences is gearing up for a Series A Round and aims to commercialize its diagnostic management tool by 2026.

>> Read more: A Gut Check for Post-Op Infection: Covira Offers a Pro-Bacteria Approach