Seek Labs Expands BioSeeker™ Global Disease Atlas to Include Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Seek Labs has expanded its BioSeeker™ Global Disease Atlas to include Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), one of the most economically devastating livestock pathogens worldwide. The update marks a further step in the company’s strategy to apply CRISPR-guided programmable therapeutics to both human and veterinary diseases.

FMD, a highly contagious viral disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, and sheep, continues to challenge global food security. The virus, which spreads rapidly across borders, remains endemic in parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. While eradication programs have succeeded in regions such as North America and Europe, recent outbreaks, including Germany’s first since 1988, which spread into Hungary and Slovakia earlier this year, demonstrate the pathogen’s continued capacity to destabilize economies and food supply chains.

Losses from FMD outbreaks are typically measured in billions of dollars due to livestock culling, trade restrictions, and long-term market disruptions. Vaccination programs exist but must be tailored to circulating regional strains. Limited surveillance capacity in many countries hinders strain-matching, leaving gaps that allow outbreaks to resurface.

Seek Labs’ BioSeeker™ platform systematically analyzes viral genomes to identify conserved sequences essential for pathogen survival. For FMD, this includes mapping across all seven known serotypes (O, A, C, Asia 1, SAT 1, SAT 2, SAT 3). By identifying genomic vulnerabilities, the platform aims to inform the design of CRISPR-based therapeutics less susceptible to viral escape mutations than conventional vaccines or small-molecule antivirals.

These mapped targets are intended to feed into Seek Labs’ Programmable Target Ablation Platform (PTAP™), a CRISPR-based system designed to inactivate pathogens with high specificity. Company representatives emphasize that BioSeeker™ compresses discovery timelines, reducing the years typically needed for target identification into weeks, thereby accelerating the development of countermeasures that could complement vaccines and strengthen resilience against FMD outbreaks.

Protein supply chains are critical to global health, and transboundary diseases like FMD remind us how fragile they remain. By adding Foot-and-Mouth Disease to the Global Disease Atlas, we’re providing government and industry stakeholders alike with the genomic intelligence needed to strengthen and safeguard food systems and accelerate the next generation of programmable therapeutics.”

Jared Bauer, CEO of Seek Labs

The addition of FMD expands a portfolio within the Global Disease Atlas that already includes African Swine Fever Virus, Capripox viruses (Lumpy Skin Disease, Sheep Pox, Goat Pox), and Classical Swine Fever. Collectively, these pathogens are considered high-priority threats to global livestock, trade stability, and protein access.