Aura Biosciences is an innovation-focused company targeting the development of drugs for rare diseases and oncology using a novel biotherapeutic approach.

This biotherapeutic approach is based on pseudovirions that harness the power of synthetic biology and viral evolution as a breakthrough approach to creating novel therapies.  Pseudovirions loaded with DNA or RNA become a new in vivo drug modality that is able to produce real human proteins within the body.

Pseudovirions are synthetic viruses that are closely related to wild type viruses in structure and behavior but lack any viral DNA. Their inherent structure is made of viral proteins that self assemble into empty nanosphere particles and as such do not have the capability to replicate or integrate. Aura has developed methods to manufacture these biological structures and load them with different types of therapeutic molecules.

The technology was discovered and patented in partnership with John Schiller’s lab at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Under a cooperative research and development agreement, research done by Aura Biosciences and the NCI has revealed effective targeting of many tumor types as well as multiple applications in the treatment of orphan diseases.