Drug discovery pipeline to exploit transcription factors for cancer therapy

Overview

• Post By : Kumar Jeetendra


• Source: Institute of Molecular Biotechnology


• Date: 21 Jul,2020

Cancer is a major cause of death and among the most complicated challenges to contemporary medication. By employing cutting-edge technologies that precisely measure the effects of candidate targets and drugs on the fundamental process of transcription, the new start-up firm QUANTRO Therapeutics tries to radically change the precision and range of cell-based drug screening.

QUANTRO’s primary focus will be on the identification and development of novel chemistry which interferes with cancer-associated transcription factors, a class of especially promising targets which have remained largely inaccessible for medication treatment.

The masterminds behind QUANTRO would be the scientists Stefan Ameres from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), and Johannes Zuber in the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), which is governed mainly by the pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim.

Stefan Ameres is the developer of SLAMseq, a time-resolved transcriptomics technologies that QUANTRO can use in its performance:”SLAMseq opens up new experimental avenues to systematically measuring transcriptional activities in living cells.
Our ability to solve the fingerprints of disease-causing transcriptional applications will enable us to break fresh ground in pharmaceutical research for the evolution of unprecedented healing interventions.”

The foundation of QUANTRO as a spin-off firm based on technologies from the partnership between the research institutes IMP and IMBA showcases that research cooperation not only generates excellent scientific outcomes.

But also makes a valuable contribution to the economic development of biotechnology in Vienna, according to Michael Krebs and Harald Isemann, who supported the spin-off as managing directors of IMBA and IMP. Both institutes are a part of this Vienna BioCenter, the largest life science cluster in Austria with over 1800 employees.

QUANTRO was able to win two renowned investors in its seed financing round: The Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and the drug-discovery and growth company Evotec.

Dieter Nachtigall, a chemist with over 20 decades of experience in pharmaceutical research and development and with over 10 years of responsibility at senior executive management positions at Boehringer Ingelheim, has been appointed CEO of QUANTRO Therapeutics GmbH.

QUANTRO has become state-of-the-art laboratories in the new start-up labs of the Vienna Business Agency at the recently completely renovated construction VBC6 and will bring more workers on board.