Much of the natural world’s chemistry remains unstudied, uncatalogued and unknown. We are overturning a stone, exploring overlooked biology and building expansive collections to chart this unexplored chemical space.
Uncharted chemistry
The Kapoose Creek Fungal Library
Highly Unique and Growing
Samples
5,000
Novel Strains
77
Chemicals
100
Prolific natural chemists
We are hunting for new chemistry in an incredible natural reservoir for medicine – fungi. These organisms have been the source of some of the most important therapeutics in history and we believe they hold the key to addressing some of the great medical challenges of our time.
An eye to exploration
We are exploring untapped natural ecosystems to identify and catalog nature’s uncharted chemistry. Through these efforts, we are building a world-unique chemical library comprising bioactive molecules.
This is a powerful starting point from which to develop new medicines.
Into the wild
We are after the underexplored. In the wild, interspecies interactions are extremely complex, involving interplay between hundreds of microbes, plants, animals, and diverse environmental factors. Laboratory conditions can never replicate these conditions. Drug discovery from wild fungi presents a unique opportunity to uncover new chemicals with potential to serve as drugs.
We are also after macrofungi, the group of fungi which form visible ‘mushrooms.’ The only practical route to obtain pure macrofungi is to culture them directly from fruiting bodies found in the wild. As a result, legacy collections only represent a small fraction of the macrofungi that exist. We are addressing this gap with a bold campaign to assemble a library that captures the full diversity of macrofungi found in nature.
Welcome to Kapoose Creek
A land of uninterrupted evolution
Kapoose Creek is situated in the heart of a coastal rainforest on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island. This picturesque and relatively untouched area of Canada was missed by the last ice-age, and as a result, is rich with unique biodiversity. Our on-site, off-grid research station provides us with unparalleled access to an enormous diversity of fungi, and their chemistry, as it exists in nature.
