With a curious and unbridled passion for both the sciences and computers, Luca Hategan co-founded biotech company Re:Pair Genomics, a startup that specializes in gene manipulation.
As the company’s chief development officer, Hategan, a master’s student in the Department of Cell & Systems Biology, pitched Re:Pair Genomics to a panel of judges in June in Monterrey, Mexico, as a semifinalist in the Hult Prize competition.
The Hult Prize is an annual international competition that challenges young people to solve the world’s most pressing issues through social entrepreneurship. After multiple rounds, the winning team will receive US$1 million in funding to turn their idea into reality. The opportunity to enter the Hult Prize was offered to U of T students through the A&S Centre for Entrepreneurship. Hategan and Re:Pair Genomics beat out several teams at U of T to win a coveted spot in the semifinals in the first round of the competition earlier this year.
“I'm very grateful that such opportunities exist. I do believe that there is a lot of talent at U of T, and the unfortunate reality is a lot of the talent goes to the United States,” says Hategan. “Fostering this local talent in a way that can actually lead to something is pretty cool.”
An impressive student with vast ambition, Hategan will earn his Master of Science in cell/cellular and microbiology in the fall of 2024.
With a strong interest in research, he joined David R. Hampson’s lab, in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, in his second year of undergrad.
“I was trying to get my foot in the door with anything related to research. At first, I just did simple stuff and I gradually transitioned and had my own project,” he says. “I knew how to program and the first project I did with that lab led to a publication, which was building on top of a machine learning network that monitored the movements of mice or rats in their cages. I built software on top of that just to quantify their behaviour.”
His love of computers and coding started when he was young. In high school he built and fixed old computers for extra money and spent a lot of time with his friends making video games. When it came time to decide which path to focus his higher education on, it was one of his teachers who told him that he could combine his two passions.
“I've always been interested in computers ever since I was a little kid. Programming was something that I had learned in high school, and that was my big decision in going into university. I did want to do engineering, but I had some great biology and chemistry teachers who really sparked my interest, especially in the biotech space,” he says.
The idea for Re:Pair Genomics was inspired by his time working in the Hampson Lab. The lab was working on developing viral vector gene therapies, which is the recreation of an absent gene in the body caused by an illness. If the expression of the missing gene can be recreated in the body, the patient can heal and return to normal over time. Re:Pair Genomics focuses on creating the presence of absent genes in the body to cure rare illnesses.
“Transgenes are typically functional copies of the gene that's missing. What Re:Pair Genomics does is pick out this region called the promote and couples it to these other regions called enhancers; these work together to drive the expression of that transgene only within the specific cell type that is intended. If you can get these viruses to express specifically in the cells that you want them to, you can effectively cure the disorder.”
According to Hategan, the impact of this technology stands to have a strong and lasting impact, aiding in the development of treatments for rare diseases and conditions.
“With this tech, you can have a streamlined process in making these viruses at a fairly low cost and getting them into drugs for relatively rare diseases that pharmaceutical companies won't invest billions of dollars into if only one per cent of the population has it.”
Hategan’s entrepreneurial journey with Re:Pair Genomics started when the company first pitched The Hatchery, the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering’s entrepreneurship accelerator. Although they didn’t win, their team gained valuable experience and was determined to pursue additional funding opportunities.
“I knew nothing about starting a business or anything business related, so it was very useful and cool to be able to do that,” he says. “That was the first one that we were a part of. We didn't win or progress past that point, but we continued fighting, and I guess it’s paid off.”
And it will continue to pay off — despite not advancing to the next round of the Hult Prize — Re:Pair Genomics established meaningful connections with attendees during the competition, who have signed on to support the company with their research and development.