• The NATO Innovation Fund has made its first investment in a biotechnology company, seeking to enhance defences against biological threats.

• The fund is co-leading a $35 million fundraising round for Portal Biotech, which uses protein sequencing to detect engineered threats and defend against biological warfare.

What is NATO Innovation Fund?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a security alliance of 32 countries from North America and Europe.

• At the 2022 Madrid Summit, Allies launched the NATO Innovation Fund, the world’s first multi-sovereign venture capital fund.

• The NATO Innovation Fund is a standalone venture capital fund, backed by 24 NATO Allies, that invests in cutting-edge science and engineering startups to strengthen the defence, security and resilience of its member nations.

• The Fund will invest €1 billion in early-stage startups and other venture capital funds developing dual-use emerging technologies of priority to NATO. 

These include: 

i) Artificial Intelligence

ii) Big-data processing

iii) Quantum-enabled technologies

iv) Biotechnology and human enhancement

v) Novel materials

vi) Energy

vii) Propulsion and space.

• The Fund will complement NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) which will support the development and adaptation of dual-use emerging technologies to critical security and defence challenges. 

Why it invests in protein sequencer?

• Today, defence and security are no longer confined to the traditional battlefield; it encompasses supply chain resilience, energy security, and vitally, preparedness against disease and biological threats.

• Proteins drive virtually every biological process, so huge gaps in how we currently read proteins and measure the complexity of the proteome derail drug pipelines, cloud diagnostics, and leave biosecurity blind spots. 

• Legacy tools like mass spectrometry shred proteins into fragments and miss critical protein modification patterns that change protein function, which costs industries billions in failed drug trials and misdiagnoses.

• UK-based platform delivers the world’s first technology for sequencing intact full length proteins at the single-molecule level to completely characterise all protein mutations and modifications. 

• Coupled with advanced AI methods, this data gives researchers a detailed view into the complexities of the proteome that traditional technologies cannot match, laying the groundwork for new foundational AI models of the dynamic proteome that will reshape our understanding of protein biology and accelerate breakthroughs throughout the life sciences.

• Portal Biotech uses an AI-backed technology with biological sensors that can work at the single molecule level on-site, giving results within hours.

• Beyond biosecurity, Portal Biotech expects its portable equipment to aid in drug discovery and precision medicine.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)