Eikon debuts to watch proteins in cells

Abstract

Eikon Therapeutics has launched with $148 million to explore whether superresolution microscopy, a technique that allows researchers to watch individual proteins inside living cells, can be used to invent drugs. Roger Perlmutter, former president of Merck Research Laboratories, has agreed to come aboard as CEO. Drug developers have long relied on snapshots of proteins to design molecules to control them. More recently, some have shifted to creating movies of individual proteins, hoping that their twisting and folding will reveal new pockets for tucking in drugs. In reality, however, proteins do their work in the complex environments of cells, where they mingle with many other molecules. The founders of Eikon—University of California, Berkeley’s Eric Betzig , Xavier Darzacq, and Robert Tjian, and Janelia Research Campus’s Luke Lavis —have worked for several years on tools and methods that allow researchers to tune into that action. “The big mystery of biology for me