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Magnitude Biosciences

Magnitude Biosciences Limited is a specialist contract research organisation (CRO) providing research services to the longevity, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceutical industries, based in the North East of England. The company provides preclinical research services using a whole organism model, specifically C elegans, and their proprietary technology platform WormGazer™. The innovative services can accelerate lab research to provide early insights and are particularly applicable for research into the microbiome, neurodegeneration, toxicity, ageing and transgenics.

Magnitude Biosciences was founded in 2018 by Dr David Weinkove and Dr Chris Saunter, after a meeting of minds at Durham University. David is well respected in the academic fields of C. elegans and ageing biology. He is now an Associate Professor at the Department of Biosciences, Durham University and Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing. David is passionate about applying the strength of C. elegans research to industrial applications. He co-founded the Magnitude Biosciences team to bring reliable automated technology together with experienced C. elegans scientists to increase productivity in the whole field. Chris is the technologist behind the WormGazer™ platform. Before co-founding Magnitude, he had gained over 15 years of experience adapting imaging technology to answer questions in biology as an Associate Professor at Durham University Physics Department.

David and Chris founded the Magnitude Biosciences team to combine reliable automated technology with experienced C. elegans scientists to increase productivity in preclinical drug/compound testing, reducing mammalian testing, de-risking clinical trials, and more effectively finding candidates for further testing.

So what is C. elegans and why is it used as a test organism?  Caenorhabditis (“C.”) elegans is a nematode worm,  a small, relatively simple, and precisely structured organism. The anatomy of its development has been described in extraordinary detail, and one can map out the exact lineage of every cell in the body.

C. elegans, despite its lack of discernible external features, offers numerous advantages for research:

  • Transparency allows for easy observation of individual cell’s fate using basic microscopy or more advanced techniques;
  • Large numbers of C.elegans can be grown and screened efficiently for the effects of new drugs on intricate processes relevant to human diseases;
  • C. elegans share a high degree of gene conservation with humans, with several comparative signalling pathways and processes;
  • Valuable for studying ageing processes due to its distinct life phases that can be observed both physiologically and genetically.

The patented biophotonics platform, developed by the company is known as WormGazer™. WormGazer™ analyses and captures multiple end-point data from living worms, providing rich integrated measures on the effect on the compound or product being tested. The technology platform has a parallel architecture, composed of multiple cameras, small processing devices (Raspberry Pis) and proprietary software, and can capture and analyse data from hundreds of petri dishes at the same time.  The data is consolidated to provide rich integrated measures on the compounds/products being tested.  The platform provides a robust workflow for high data reproducibility and rapid turnaround, non-invasive and continuous data acquisition and versatile data processing to reveal subtle and diverse health intervention effects.

 

 

Magnitude Biosciences’ early clients were academics and the technology platform was trialled and tested with their input.  The company grew delivery to commercial organisations from May 2020, with the last 18 months (up to May 2024) having a focus on the technology platform to be able to provide services to larger industry clients.  The early commercial clients were smaller biotech organisations, but as the technology platform has matured and the Magnitude team increased, the company is now in a position to provide services to larger pharma, health and nutrition companies.

As a part of their 2023 funding round, Magnitude also received funding from InnovateUK. This funding will allow the team to further develop the WormGazer™ platform, enabling further automation to be introduced to increase the number of compounds that can be screened and maximising efficiencies.

If you are interested in partnering with Magnitude Biosciences or would just like further information please reach out to info@magnitudebiosciences.com to learn more!

 

Images courtesy of Magnitude Biosciences Limited