We are building the next generation of deep-learning models for enzyme design to slash the cost of chemical manufacturing. The $6 trillion chemical industry is flawed: It produces 20% of industrial greenhouse gases, and is responsible for 15% of global energy usage. 

Enzymes offer a far more sustainable alternative to chemical synthesis and have already revolutionised how a select few chemicals are produced. The problem is each enzyme takes years of trial and error to develop. Our enzyme models learn the principles of catalysis, allowing us to design enzymes for each reaction, in days not years. 

We currently have $4.3M of LOIs and have completed our first $20k contract. 
AI designed enzymes for the chemical industry.
Title: Ligo Biosciences: AI designed enzymes for the chemical industry. | Y Combinator

URL Source: 

Markdown Content:


### AI designed enzymes for the chemical industry.

We are building the next generation of deep-learning models for enzyme design to slash the cost of chemical manufacturing. The $6 trillion chemical industry is flawed: It produces 20% of industrial greenhouse gases, and is responsible for 15% of global energy usage. Enzymes offer a far more sustainable alternative to chemical synthesis and have already revolutionised how a select few chemicals are produced. The problem is each enzyme takes years of trial and error to develop. Our enzyme models learn the principles of catalysis, allowing us to design enzymes for each reaction, in days not years. We currently have $4.3M of LOIs and have completed our first $20k contract.

### Latest News



Ligo Biosciences

Founded:2024

Team Size:4

Location:San Francisco

### Active Founders

### Edward Harris, Founder

Second-time founder currently building Ligo - using deep learning to design enzymes. Studied CS at Princeton before transferring to Oxford to study Medicine. At 19 I moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, and bootstrapped Abas2Go to $1M in revenue. Now my interests lie in synthetic biology and biotech.



### Emily Egerton-Warburton, Founder

I'm a biochemist from Oxford University with experience in the intensive environment of biotech startups, working on everything from bacterial biofuel production to vaccine design. Now focused on designing enzymes to make the chemical industry more sustainable.



### Arda Goreci, Founder

Founder at Ligo (S24). I studied Cell and Systems Biology at Oxford where I became a Google Cloud Research Innovator for my work in computational biology. Interested in deep learning, scaling laws, geometric DL, biomolecular design.



### Company Launches

[### Ligo Biosciences - Generative enzyme design for the chemical industry](

**Tl;dr:**

*   [Ligo]( is using deep learning to design **novel enzymes** to make **chemical manufacturing** cheaper and more sustainable.
*   The three founders met in a synbio lab at **Oxford University** where they decided to take on the **$6 trillion chemicals industry.**
*   Sign up for our [**waitlist**]( (Big news soon!)

**The Team:**
-------------

Hey - we are Ed, Emily, and Arda! We are building Ligo.



👨🏻‍⚕️CEO, [**Ed**]( — Ed studied **CS at Princeton** before transferring to **Oxford Medical School,** where he worked across three top synthetic biology labs. Ed bootstrapped his first startup at 19 in the food markets of Guadalajara, Mexico, and took it to **$1M in annual revenue.**

👩‍🔬CSO, [**Emily**]( — Emily is a top **biochemist** from **Oxford University** who honed her wet lab skills in the intensive environment of biotech startups. Working on everything from bacterial **biofuel** production to **vaccine design**, Emily is **happiest with a pipette in hand**!

👨‍💻CTO, [**Arda**]( — Arda studied **cell and systems biology** at **Oxford,** where he became a **Google Cloud Research Innovator** for his work in computational biology. Arda’s obsession with deep learning for biomolecular design began when the original AlphaFold paper was released.

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

* * *

❌ **The problem**:
------------------

**(1) The $6 trillion chemicals industry is flawed:**

*   This industry produces **_20% of industrial greenhouse gases_** and is responsible for **_15% of global energy usage_.**
*   Traditional chemical manufacturing relies on hazardous materials and produces **_huge amounts of waste,_** resulting in **high costs.**
*   **You** unknowingly contribute to this problem by personally using **~160 of these chemicals daily.**

**(2) Enzymes offer an amazing solution, but they are hard to develop**

*   Enzymes are biological catalysts. They accelerate reactions at mild temperatures and pressures, making chemical manufacturing **cheaper, faster, and more sustainable.**
*   **Major pharmaceutical companies** already use enzymes for manufacturing a limited number of drugs but developing them costs **tens of millions of dollars** and takes **multiple years.**
*   Current enzyme engineering approaches are **limited** because they must start from an enzyme that already exists.
*   No models currently understand the principles of catalysis, resulting in a narrow range of possible reactions that can be catalysed.

✅ **Our Solution: Enzymes Designed From Scratch**
-------------------------------------------------

*   We are building **foundational enzyme design models** that learn from huge amounts of data to **understand the principles of catalysis.**
*   The model **generates structures capable of catalysing reactions** directly from transition state models, meaning we will **expand the number of reactions that can feasibly be accelerated** using enzymes.
*   These enzymes can catalyse reactions to **synthesise high-value chemicals** used in the pharmaceutical, agriculture, and consumer goods industries.

[Our Diffusion Model](

**Partnerships:**
-----------------

We are happy to announce two key partnerships.

*   [**Basecamp Research**]( is on track to have **1000x more sequence diversity than public resources** - We are collaborating to use their data to improve our soon-to-be-released OpenSource model (sign up [here](
*   [**Adaptyv Bio**]( is building a next-generation protein foundry. Their engineers, Liza and Igor, are helping to build the **data pipeline for OpenSource model** using their state-of-the-art **bioinformatics tool, ProteinFlow.**

**We’d Love Your Help**❤️
-------------------------

*   Sign up for our [waitlist]( (Big news soon!)
*   We’d love intros to:
    *   Small chemical companies in pharmaceuticals, fragrances, food&drink, detergents
    *   Big Pharma and Agricultural chemical companies
    *   **Any** **other biotech** companies! Email us [ed@ligo.bio](mailto:ed@ligo.bio)
