Syros has identified cancer patients with aberrant expression of genes that can be targeted with new therapies.
Project
Indications
Technique
Intro
Driven by the motivation to help patients with blood disorders that have largely eluded current targeted approaches.
Syros Pharmaceutics is advancing their late-stage clinical pipeline to provide new treatment options. By controlling gene expression with their small molecule therapies, Syros aims to make a profound difference in the lives of patients and their families.
Challenge
Over the years, we’ve worked closely with Syros on telling their story via their website, original photography, and video.
For their first Mechanism Of Action video, their goal was to tell a unique story about their unique drug platform to non-science audiences, investors, and the wider scientific community.
Solution
For some science stories, we use metaphors that take complex science and convey it into easy-to-understand ideas.
In this case, we proposed using the analogy of switches that turn gene expressions on and off as a metaphor to explain the Syros gene expression platform. This idea was a breakthrough for Syros in how they told their story across all their marketing platforms.
Instead of creating an immersive, photo-realistic 3D world inside the body, we used 2D animation to tell this story. While 3D is fantastic for showing what things might look like inside the body in a highly cinematic way, 2D animation gives permission to create endless worlds limited only by imagination. And while 2D is often a bit easier and faster to create, this isn’t always the case.
In this highly complex 2D animation, we demonstrate the problem. How gene expression, a characteristic or effect attributed to a particular gene, turned on, off, up or down in any given cell, determines its type and function. When the wrong genes are expressed at the wrong time or in the wrong amounts, it can lead to disease.
We then go on to show how many answers to disease can be found in our DNA. Using the switch metaphor, Syro’s and its pioneering gene expression platform becomes the protagonist of the story offering the promise of remarkable treatments and profound benefits for patients.