Bakar Bio Labs News

Innovating on Innovation: a New Trick to Accelerate Startups

5 min read

Take a back seat, lab-automation robots. Canine couriers are here to deliver our tenants’ scientific samples.

Two black labrador puppies investigate plastic labware on the floor
From birth, our GMO puppies can discriminate between centrifuge tubes and 96-well plates.

Ears perked up in our ecosystem today as we announced that our collaboration with the Innovative Genomics Institute has yielded its first commercial offering: CRISPR-enabled genetically engineered dogs.

Sniffing an opportunity

Three scientists in lab coats look at a laptop while a brown dog noses a biohazard container behind them
On-the-job training: A F1D0 animal attempts to empty a sharps container. (Inexplicably, he has neglected to wear PPE. He’ll learn.)

Tenants have long howled that our building’s doglegged layout slows the pace of innovation. Delays pile up as samples must be moved from lab to lab; data-hungry investors are left panting with frustration.

Determined to leave his mark, Professor Dave Schaffer was determined to show who was alpha. After chewing on the problem for a couple of hours, he leapt up shouting “Eureka.” Just as bike couriers speed around the city with urgent paperwork, why couldn’t genetically engineered dogs deliver multiwell plates, cryovials and cuvettes to their destinations?

Creativity unleashed

A black dog wearing a yellow vest opens a -80C freezer
Who wants to help cure cancer? Who wants to help cure cancer? You do! A mature M0-nGReL class animal selects a frozen flask of cells to thaw.

GMO details are buried in confidentiality, but we did dig up that the technology has been dubbed Functional Epigenetic Transcription Canine Hybridization. The first innovation is based on the BSL2 gene, identified in trained seals that have an extraordinary ability to balance balls on their noses. This type of fine motor control is perfect for delicate cargoes. Nose-balancing isn’t the only option, but in trials, dogs were able to maintain samples on their noses for up to 4 minutes – eating them less than 2% of the time. “That’ll happen,” Schaffer said. “They’re dogs. What did you expect?”

The bare bones

An additional insight came from Jay Dogdna, a 7th-year postdoc, who showed that hybridization with the AKC gene led to a novel phenomenon, BinAural Recognition of Commands (BARC), that dramatically improves human voice discrimination in pups. Now, following basic commands like “freezer”, “centrifuge” and “sorter”, early data shows the dogs can accurately bring their cargoes to the right destination. “We barked up the right tree,” said Managing Director BiShawn Frizet.

Bound to obey

Yellow labrador wearing white lab coat carries test tube full of blue liquid
Minutes count! A fully-trained dog on a mission to deliver scientific cargo to its destination, saving our tenants precious time.

But dogged persistence wasn’t enough. Environmental Health & Safety hackles went up when the unorthodox use of animals was first presented. “Who let the dogs out?” growled EH&S Director Dane Boxer. Ultimately, he took a more submissive position, and now BSL-2 materials may be handled by non-humans throughout the facility. On a recent surprise inspection however, a litter of puppies-in-training cascaded out of a cell culture room, unable to distinguish between “sorter” and “cycler” commands. Lead trainer Jen Eddick had a meltdown. “This is rough,” she snarled. “Rough.”

Rolling over

Black labrador retriever wearing lab coat licking up puddle on lab floor
We’re exploring multiple applications of this new technology. Here, a MU-TT toxic cleanup animal laps up an unidentified spill in our core facility.

Not every tenant has lapped it up. Na Wei Hosei and Puri Nachow, co-founders of Dogma Biosciences, a tenant developing alternative meats, had a bone to pick with the new program’s innovators. “The dogs don’t care if bacon is made from seaweed,” Nachow said. “They got into our storeroom. You can’t imagine the carnage.”

The founding team seems to have a knack for branding. In a nod to the legions of PhDs who do a lot of grunt work with low pay and have a nose for free food, the beta launch has been dubbed “Postdog.”

As often happens in biology, this technology has been pioneered in a model organism, and to date scientists have limited their use to a single genetic strain. Fortunately, it’s America’s favorite! For now, lovers of pugs, Shar Peis, Chihuahuas, Great Danes and Aussie cattle dogs have to wait. Pre-orders may be placed starting today, for just one breed: Bakar Labs.

A black and a yellow dog exit the front door of the incubator, watched by a young woman in a black t-shirt
Good dog! Scientific duties completed, our crack team heads for home and their second jobs as emotional-support animals.