Russian-Singaporean biotech startup Gero has raised $ 2.2 million from Bulba Ventures and other investors.

[boj Ko]

https://gero.ai/

Russian-Singaporean biotech startup Gero has raised $ 2.2 million from Bulba Ventures and other investors.

The startup is collecting large biomedical data from animals and humans and is using machine learning and AI to try to figure out the causes of aging, the company explains.

In this way, Gero has already developed a drug that will help to recover faster after a stroke in the future and will prevent accelerated aging after chemotherapy, the company said. He is now in the preclinical stage.

The money received Gero used to develop an AI-based platform for analyzing clinical and genetic data and for finding drugs for chronic, mental and other diseases.

Gero was founded in 2012 by Petr Fedichev, who now holds the post of the company's CEO, and Maxim Kholin, the current development director. The startup is collaborating with researchers from Harvard Medical School, MIT and others. According to its own data, the company has raised a total of $ 7.5 million since its launch.

We utilized a deep neural network to search for host-target acting antivirals among experimental and approved drugs with potential activity against coronavirus-born diseases. To achieve the goal we searched for gene expression signatures of molecular perturbations most closely resembling the effects of the COPB2 gene knockout since COPB2 is required for replication of a genetically similar virus SARS-CoV. The majority of the top-scoring molecules were already suggested for repurposing as broad-spectrum antivirals. One of the approved drugs from the list, nitazoxanide, has recently demonstrated activity against SARS-CoV-2. We, therefore, urge prompt experimental characteriza- tion of the other predictions and highlight the potential of modern AI/ML technologies for prompt identification of human-trial ready therapeutics against the world’s most urgent medical needs

Tell us who else knows what about this project?