Partner Program

Collaborative chassis programs for your biology

Chassiscell is not a strain catalog. We build structured technical collaborations starting from your target compound, organism preferences, and timeline — and design a characterized chassis toward those specific constraints. The program ends with a data package your team can build on.

Who This Is For

Three collaboration profiles

Pharmaceutical R&D Groups

Biosynthesis programs for complex natural products, terpenoids, polyketides, or non-ribosomal peptides — where precursor availability, competing branch-point fluxes, and product toxicity are the real bottlenecks. We build the chassis that addresses those constraints before you start pathway loading.

Biotech Engineering Teams

Therapeutic protein or antibody fragment expression programs that require mammalian or yeast chassis with characterized glycosylation profiles, confirmed disulfide bond formation capacity, and known behavior under scalable culture conditions.

Industrial Biology Programs

Specialty chemical, biopolymer, and bio-based material production programs where industrial process stresses — product toxicity, high osmolarity, dissolved oxygen swings, and fed-batch carbon transitions — demand a host specifically profiled for your operating conditions.

How We Work Together

From first conversation to chassis delivery

Discovery Call

30–45 minutes to understand your program: target compound class, organism preferences, what strains you've already tested, and what failed. No NDA required for the initial call — we keep the conversation at a level appropriate to that stage.

Technical Scoping

We review your pathway design and identify chassis constraints: precursor availability gaps, regulatory network conflicts, and host compatibility requirements. Output is a written technical proposal covering organism recommendation, modification scope, characterization deliverables, and timeline estimate.

Chassis Development

Custom chassis design and CRISPR/Cas9 construction under agreed milestones and data delivery checkpoints. Intermediate characterization data is shared at each milestone — you don't wait until delivery to see how the chassis is performing.

Characterization Package

Full data package at delivery: growth curves, plasmid retention assays, proteomics snapshot, and condition-matched metabolic flux data. Chassis transferred with complete documentation including genome edit verification records and vector compatibility notes — not just a vial and a sequence file.

Program Details

Common questions

What IP arrangements do you use?

We work under standard sponsored research agreements (SRAs) or materials transfer agreements (MTAs). IP on partner-specific modifications — pathway elements, target-compound-specific genetic parts — is fully negotiable. Core chassis platform IP, including the reduction strategy and characterization pipeline, remains with Chassiscell. We do not require that you share undisclosed compound structures before an NDA is in place.

What is the typical program timeline?

Scoping through chassis delivery typically ranges from 3 to 9 months depending on organism complexity and modification scope. E. coli K-12 programs with a well-defined pathway and existing metabolic model tend toward 3–5 months. Mammalian programs (CHO-K1 or derivatives) or programs requiring novel genome reduction strategies take longer. We do not quote timelines before Technical Scoping — any number before that stage is not meaningful.

Do you require exclusivity?

Chassis developed for one partner program are not transferred to competing programs in the same compound class without explicit agreement. We maintain separate project records per partner and do not share program-specific information across engagements. If you are building toward a program that is commercially sensitive, we are set up to exchange NDAs before technical scoping begins.

Can we provide our own genetic parts?

Yes, with review. We can integrate partner-supplied genetic parts — regulatory sequences, promoters, RBS variants, coding sequences — into our chassis backgrounds, provided they clear our compatibility review. We assess sequence for integration site conflicts, codon bias relative to host preference, and expression strength under our standard characterization conditions before committing to integration. We do not accept parts supplied as obfuscated or encrypted sequences.

First Program Cohort

We are building our initial partner cohort now

Chassiscell is in early-stage conversations with a small number of pharma and biotech programs for our inaugural cohort. We are currently characterizing strains alongside our first founding partners. If your team is working on a biosynthesis or cell engineering program and wants to explore collaboration, reaching out now allows you to shape the program before the first cohort closes.

Inquire About Collaboration

Get In Touch

Let's design your chassis

Tell us about your target compound, current chassis situation, and what's blocking your program. If a collaboration makes sense, we'll know quickly.

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