At Myllia, we perform CRISPR screens in primary human cells. More specifically, we use the genome scissors CRISPR/Cas9 to perturb human genes in an unbiased manner. This allows us to establish a link between a gene and a disease and uncover novel drug targets for future therapies.

What sets us apart is that we use primary human cells for our experiments. These are cells that can be obtained directly from humans – either from healthy volunteers or from patients. In some cases, this is relatively straightforward; in other cases, such cells are very difficult to obtain. But it is worth the effort because the drug targets we find are more likely to lead to new drugs.

By combining CRISPR with single-cell transcriptomics, we see what others miss – how genes truly shape cell behaviour. Our CROP-seq technology allows us to trace the precise impact of each gene knockout – cell by cell, gene by gene.

We use CRISPR to knock out genes in human cells — but that’s just the beginning. By probing complex cellular phenotypes at unprecedented depth and scale, we obtain rich biological insights that drive disease understanding and accelerate drug discovery.

Many diseases are affected by malfunction of the immune system and recent breakthroughs have given rise to novel therapies in oncology and autoimmunity. We work with primary human immune cells to uncover the most impactful targets that will drive the next wave of immune therapies.