ProQR Partners with Ginkgo Bioworks and Forms AI Advisory Board

ProQR Therapeutics has announced a partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to advance its AI-enabled RNA drug discovery efforts, according to a company press release. The collaboration gives ProQR access to Ginkgo’s autonomous lab, Nebula, which is equipped with more than 50 instruments for high-throughput data generation. Ginkgo also made a strategic equity investment in ProQR as part of the agreement.

The partnership aims to accelerate ProQR’s Axiomer RNA editing technology platform by increasing the scale and speed of experimental data generation. This will support the company’s AI models in predicting and optimizing RNA editing oligonucleotides for drug discovery.

ProQR has also established an AI Advisory Board composed of leaders from the AI and biotech sectors. Members include senior figures from Owkin, NVIDIA, Hugging Face, Leiden University, HCVC, and Kimia Therapeutics. The board will advise on best practices and emerging approaches for applying AI to RNA editing research.

The company expects its first AI-discovered development candidate from the Axiomer platform to enter clinical trials in 2026, with initial data anticipated by the end of that year.