Recently, Nuritas, a Dublin based data and life sciences startup has been featured on many websites as one of the most innovative start-ups across the globe. Led by Dr. Nora Khaldi, Nuritas combines artificial intelligence and genomics to discover and unlock natural Bioactive Peptides with extraordinary health benefits.
Owing to Dr. Nora Khaldi’s background in mathematics, molecular evolution, computational genomics and bioinformatics, she found herself at the intersection of a number of trends that were driving the emergence of this new field. In the terrain of human health, Nuritas paved way for a breakthrough in significantly improving injury repair by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create a bioactive ingredient.
The company focuses on three main lines of business. The first is to partner with industry to find peptides for targets identified by the customer. The second is to identify bioactives which can then be either licensed to an industry partner or further developed by Nuritas. The third is the development of consumer products such as ingredients for functional and health foods.
Launched in 2015, Nuritas secured 16 million Euros in Series A funding led by Chicago-based Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, bringing its total investment to approximately 25 million Euros. The Dublin-based company began building a platform that could analyze thousands of research papers a day that included writing a series of proprietary algorithms to be able to search and predict which properties in certain substances might have specific impacts on certain health issues.
Nuritas has divisions focused on human health, cosmetics and nutrition. Through its work, it has identified peptides-chains of amino acids. Peptides are molecules that are often found in plants and can be used as ingredients to improve health. However, these bioactive molecules are very hard to find and that is where AI kicks in. It can be used to prevent diabetes or in the treatment of muscular dystrophy.
PeptAIde developed by Nuritas, comprises of a unique peptide network unlocked from rice protein developed to alleviate inflammation, the body’s response to injury. Research demonstrates that the consumption of PeptAIde leads to anti-inflammatory responses by modulating cytokine responses and immune activity.
“Substances with therapeutic potential have existed within nature for hundreds of millions of years; however, humans haven’t been able to identify, access and harness the potential of those substances with the necessary speed and accuracy” says Nora Khaldi.
Nuritas’s promise at changing the health of the world through molecules in plants has caught the eye of a number of potential investors including Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff as well as Bono and The Edge from Irish rock band U2.
Biopharma giant BASF has collaborated with Nuritas and will bring to the market a new product called PeptAIde, which is a patented network of anti-inflammatory bioactive peptides discovered by Nuritas’s proprietary AI platform. The product was launched commercially in the US with additional launches in Asia Pacific and Europe in 2019. Also, Nuritas is working with food giant Nestlé to discover bioactive peptide networks within natural food sources.
“Our team of scientists has made a revolutionary leap in human history by developing a proprietary artificial intelligence platform with the unique capability to make discoveries that would otherwise have taken humans dozens of years and cost tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. Our natural anti-inflammatory, PeptAIde, is just the beginning. The capabilities of our AI technology to empower the human discovery of natural molecules to improve the health of billions of people holds limitless potential.” adds Nora.
