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Computational Biology Startup Camp4 Therapeutics Launches With $30M in Series A Funding

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Computational biology startup Camp4 Therapeutics has emerged from stealth mode and closed on a $30 million Series A round of venture capital.

Andreessen Horowitz led the round, with participation from Polaris Partners and the Kraft Group. Polaris Partners supported an earlier seed round, according to Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Camp4.

The company, founded by Richard Young of MIT's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and Leonard Zon of Boston Children's Hospital, makes technology called the 4-D Gene Circuitry Platform, which is intended to shorten and reduce risk in the drug development process.

"The machinery that controls activation of the 24,000 genes in the human body can be codified by Camp4's platform into a discrete set of combinatorial rules using signaling pathways," CEO Josh Mandel-Brehm said in a statement. "By combining novel experimental data and computational capabilities, our platform solves the control code for any gene and cell type central to disease pathology."

Mandel-Brehm said that Camp4 has created a high-resolution, 4-D map of the liver and all genes associated with liver diseases. With the Series A funding, the company hopes to further its goal of mapping all human cell types.

"By combining the power of epigenomics, computational biology, and machine learning, Camp4's platform has the unique potential to elucidate the mechanisms and rules governing gene regulation across disease," said Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Jorge Conde. "This is an extraordinary opportunity to transform how we think about discovering new therapies and treating patients."

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