Forge Collaborates with Dr Jason Zhang to Pioneer Key Anti-Obesity Bacterium

We’re working with Dr Jason (Yanjia) Zhang of Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School to genetically engineer Blautia wexlerae.

B. wexlerae is of great interest because it is strongly inversely correlated with

obesity and loss-of-control eating in studies from Japan, Spain, and the US.

A 2022 Nature Communications paper showed that giving B. wexlerae to mice on high-fat diets actively reduced weight gain and improved type 2 diabetes metrics.

Dr Zhang is going one step further by discovering the underlying mechanism for the effect. His article which is currently in pre-print (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13060934/) details the effects of acyl amines produced by B. wexlerae as the probable explanation for the importance of this bacterium. 

To take that research further, he wanted to knock out the genes responsible for acyl amine production. Unfortunately there were no reports of engineered mutants in this strain in the academic literature to date. It is a strict anaerobe with low DNA transfer rates. 

That’s where Forge came in.

Recently, Dr Zhang visited us in Nottingham to see us generate the first knockout strain in B. wexlerae using Forge Editing. 

Dr Zhang’s research is fascinating and impactful and we’re honoured to be working with him.