About Us
LyGenesis, Inc. is a clinical-stage cell therapy company that transforms a patient's lymph nodes into bioreactors capable of growing functioning ectopic organs.
Instead of one donor organ treating one patient, LyGenesis’ technology enables one donor organ to treat dozens of patients.
Instead of major surgery, LyGenesis uses outpatient endoscopic ultrasound for transplantation of its cell therapy, which enables cells to engraft, proliferate, and become a functioning ectopic organ.
LyGenesis’s cell therapies completely upend the economics and supply-demand calculus of organ transplantation by using the patient’s own lymph nodes as bioreactors to grow functioning ectopic organs. For the lead liver indication, one donated liver can treat dozens of ESLD patients, and the cell therapy is engrafted into the lymph nodes using an outpatient endoscopic ultrasound procedure, which is associated with substantially decreased medical risks and costs relative to full organ transplantation.
Team
Justin Briggs
Justin Briggs is a scientific entrepreneur and investor working at the nexus of biology, chemistry, and engineering. He is a Biologist & Operating Partner at Prime Movers Lab and supports portfolio company Zafrens full time. He also serves on the boards of LyGenesis, Iridia, and Morphoceuticals.
Over the last 15 years, Justin was an operator at nearly a dozen biotech, nanotech, robotics, and software companies with multiple exits and over $100 million in venture backing. Justin also supported venture creation at startup studios such as Deep Science Ventures and Accele Venture Partners. Justin developed novel therapeutics and regenerative medicines in disease areas including oncology, neurology, autoimmune, cardiometabolic, and infectious diseases across ten countries and four continents.
Prior to joining Prime Movers Lab, Justin developed next-generation biologic medicines, novel pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and other technologies at companies including Antiverse, Tetherex Pharmaceuticals, Accele BioPharma, Otologic Pharmaceutics, Pamlico BioPharma, Synereca, Jortan Pharma, Altheus Therapeutics, Crescendo Biosciences, and Southwest Nanotechnologies. Justin co-founded TomorrowScale Ventures and startups Chorus Labs, SnapLab Technologies, and Patch Botanics. Justin is knowledgeable across many discovery, development, commercialization, and scaling activities relevant to deep tech and life science companies, has a degree in biomedical sciences from the University of Oklahoma, an MBA with high honors from Oklahoma City University, and is a co-inventor on multiple issued patents.