Chicago-based Syntax Bio believes it has cracked the code for turning stem cells into pancreatic beta cells in as little as four days.
The biotech's so-called Cellgorithm platform contains an epigenetic set of instructions that turns cell transcription factors on and off to steer cell fate.
“Like a computer program, it runs lines of code, and those lines of code are just instructions to tell the cell what to do and what to become and what function to have,” Syntax's Chief Scientific Officer Ryan Clarke, Ph.D., told Fierce in an interview.
“When you deliver an algorithm, it's like pressing run on a computer program—it goes step by step and takes the cell to a final destination that can then be used by a scientist or a clinician,” Clarke explained.
The Cellgorithm platform leverages CRISPR activation technology to switch on the cell’s own genes in a specific order without cutting or editing the genome. By delivering a set of instructions to the cell’s genes, Cellgorithm can turn on expression of driver genes towards pancreatic beta cell lineage, a process the company presented at the recent International Society for Stem Cell Research symposium in Japan.
Syntax uses a conditional guide RNA technology that allows for the delivery of multiple guide RNAs at once. The guides are also targeted to each other, meaning that when one guide RNA reaches the gate of another, it will then cut the gate and trigger the next guide RNA to continue, Clarke explained.
Following delivery of the Cellgorithm plasmid to the stem cells, the researchers found that single-cell RNA sequencing and protein expression analyses along the way indicated that the cells were guided toward endocrine precursor and pancreatic beta-like cell states in as little as four days.
Typically, if researchers want to use stem cells as the starting cell and differentiate them to another cell it can take multiple months, according to Clarke. This long process is tedious as well as time-consuming, leaving room for error from contamination of the cells.
Instead, Cellgorithm is designed to offer speed, simplification, cost-effectiveness and scalability, Clarke told Fierce.
Pancreatic beta cells are the cells in the pancreas that produce, store and release insulin to control blood sugar levels. In Type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly attacks beta cells, leaving the body unable to make insulin. In Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells overwork themselves and end up producing very little insulin.
The idea of engineering stem cells to create pancreatic beta cells is not a new trend. In 2019, Semma Therapeutics reported a method to produce insulin-producing beta cells from pluripotent stem cells. A team at the University of Miami also worked on converting specialized stem cells called progenitors into beta cells, while a group at Washington University in St. Louis developed a way to use CRISPR-Cas9 to edit a mutation in human-induced pluripotent stem cells to turn them into beta cells.
Syntax spun out of a lab at the University of Illinois Chicago, emerging from stealth in 2021. In June 2026, the Chicago-based biotech secured a $14.4 million series A round—backed by the likes of Astellas Venture Management and Mayo Clinic—to develop pancreatic beta cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes.
“The patient need is just absolutely enormous in Type 1 diabetes,” Clarke said. “Once this gets working and is scalable, the applications in Type 2 diabetes are right around the corner.”
Although the current research study was conducted with the aim of making pancreatic beta cells, Clarke sees potential to expand to other cell types as well as other therapeutic models.
“We want this to be in the hands of anybody who wants to ask a question about programming cell states,” he added.