This month The Chain shares a recent episode of the Lab Rats to Unicorns podcast. Lab Rats to Unicorns, hosted by John Flavin, aims to demystify the process of creating a great company in the life sciences, biotech, medtech, clean energy, and beyond. In this episode, Flavin speaks with Lesley Millar-Nicholson, executive director of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (TLO). Millar-Nicholson discusses the role of the TLO, what happens after a patent is filed and licensed to a company or...

In this month’s episode of The Chain, host Ben Hackel, professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, speaks with Gabriel Rocklin, assistant professor of Pharmacology at Northwestern University, about two recently published papers from Rocklin’s lab: one on advancing the ability to design challenging typologies and one on developing and leveraging a new technique on high-throughput protein biophysics. Rocklin shares the journey from ideation to...

How does one maintain innovation in the antibody industry? In this episode of The Chain, host Tariq Ghayur, PhD, consultant and entrepreneur in residence, FairJourney Biologics, talks with Janine Schuurman, PhD, president of The Antibody Society, independent biotech consultant and founder of Lust for Life Sciences, about her inspiration to get into antibody engineering, her impressive career at Genmab, advice for a productive work environment, and her current work. Dr. Schuurman also shares...

Bispecific antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) have been undergoing a renaissance in recent years. As big pharma continues to express more interest, what can the field expect for the future of ADCs? In this episode of The Chain, Nimish Gera, Ph. D., Vice President of Biologics of Mythic Therapeutics, speaks with Rakesh Dixit, Ph. D., President & CEO of Bionavigen, about his thoughts on the future of bispecific ADCs, what to keep in mind when selecting targets, and how to choose the right...

What can we expect from GPCRs in antibodies and biologics? In this episode of The Chain, host Rajesh Sundaresan, PhD, Scientific Leader and GSK Fellow of Protein Cell and Structural Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline, speaks with Thomas P. Sakmar, MD, Professor of Chemical Biology at Rockefeller University, about the history of GPCRs and various subunits, his early work with rhodopsin, and the impact of crystallography and structural work. He also shares how he got started with molecular biology...

In this episode of The Chain, Richard Bonneau, PhD, and Marcel Hop, PhD, of Genentech interview Tala Fakhouri, PhD, of the FDA on her thoughts on the discussion paper, “Using Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in the Development of Drug & Biologic Products” and the evolving role of AI/ML to create models and inform decisions in biopharmaceutical development and regulatory submissions. Dr. Fakhouri also discusses the impact AI/ML models could have on clinical trial conduct,...

With the whirlwind development of AI, it can be difficult to keep track of its uses in both research and the market. In this episode of The Chain podcast, host Ben Hackel, Professor of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science at the University of Minnesota, speaks with Enkelejda “Ledi” Miho, Professor of Digital Life Sciences at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW, who breaks down the current state of AI and its role in drug development. She talks about the...

What is the first step of getting into biotech? How do you make real progress in research? In honor of Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, host Nimish Gera discusses these topics and more with Jonathan Sockolosky, PhD, Director of CSO Partner Team at Curie.Bio, in this special episode of The Chain. Jonathan details how he got started in biotech, what inspires him to keep going, his personal interests in ovarian cancer treatments, and what he does to raise funds to further ovarian cancer research....

In this episode of The Chain, Brandon Dekosky, Associate Professor at MIT, speaks with Adrian Bot, Founding Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of R&D at Capstan Therapeutics, about his experiences in leadership roles, his scientific journey, and how he started work on immunotherapy for cancer. Bot also shares what it's like to be a “serial scientific entrepreneur” and the importance of networking to assemble a team that shares mutual interests, as well as how to...

In this special episode of The Chain, G. Jonah Rainey, Senior Director of Protein Engineering at Eli Lilly and Company, hosts a panel at PEGS 2023 to discuss strategies to engineer parameters for solid tumor-targeting T-cell-engagers. Guests Stephen J. Demarest from Tentarix Biotherapeutics, Michelle Morrow from F-Star Therapeutics, Inc., and Dario Neri from Philogen provide their insights and experiences on navigating challenges, researching treatments, and the positives and negatives of...

In this month’s episode of The Chain, Greg M. Thurber, associate professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, sits with moderator Nimish Gera, vice president of biologics at Mythic Therapeutics, to talk about the development of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). Thurber details the history of ADCs and the skepticism facing the field during the mid-2010s, despite showing great promise in anticancer treatment. He also discusses how recent FDA...

Kyron.Bio is revolutionizing drug production with its Next Generation Bioproduction Platform that will make the production of therapeutics easier, cheaper and faster. Voldborg and McLaughlin talk about their shared vision for using synthetic biology to improve the production of therapeutic proteins.    Kyron.Bio: https://kyron.bio/  

In this month’s episode of the Chain, guest Peter Tessier, Albert M. Mattocks pharmaceutical sciences and chemical engineering professor at the University of Michigan, speaks with moderator Tariq Ghayur, scientific advisor and entrepreneur in residence at FairJourney Biologics, about expediting the developability of antibodies. He discusses the characteristics that best predict a molecule’s drug-like properties, the different assays used for various intended outcomes, and why every scientist...

Dr. Andrew Anzalone, head of the Prime Editing Platform and scientific co-founder at Prime Medicine, is the winner of the PEGS Boston 2023 Young Scientist Keynote. He was invited to sit down with Brandon DeKosky, assistant professor of chemical engineering at MIT, to discuss prime editing and its precision in treating inherited genetic mutations. Anzalone outlines the next generation tool’s advantages over traditional CRISPR methods and the mechanism creating fewer gene editing errors. He...

Jan Terje Andersen, professor of biomedical innovation in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oslo and research group leader in the Department of Immunology at the Oslo University Hospital, has spent nearly two decades studying neonatal Fc receptors (FcRns) and their interactions with prominent blood proteins albumin and IgG. He sits down with moderator Nimish Gera, vice president of biologics at Mythic Therapeutics, to discuss the unique properties of FcRn and how it can be...

In this month’s episode of the Chain, Jim Wells, professor of pharmaceutical chemistry and cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, sits down with moderator Ben Hackel, associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota, to discuss Wells’ work in advancing targeted protein degradation.  Wells outlines the key design elements of targeted protein degraders and their general mechanism of action, how his lab...

Over the last two decades, cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has transformed from what Dr. Andrew Ward calls the “outcast of structural biology” to one of the most promising technologies in the field. Ward, professor of integrative structural and computational biology at Scripps Research Institute, speaks with moderator Brandon DeKosky, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, about the evolution of cryo-EM and how its direct detector...

Dame Jane Osbourn, chief scientific officer at Alchemab Therapeutics, speaks with Ahuva Nissim, antibody and therapeutic engineering professor at Queen Mary University of London William Harvey Research Institute, about the career path that took her from studying molecular biology and building human phage libraries to developing therapeutics with convergent protective antibodies. Osbourn talks about the most inspiring mentors of her career, her interest in immunological resiliency, the...

Charlotte Deane, professor of structural bioinformatics at the University of Oxford and upcoming speaker at the 14th Annual PEGS Europe Conference in Barcelona, joins moderator Brandon DeKosky, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to discuss the use of machine learning in antibody structure prediction.  In this episode, Deane talks about her lab's AI tools for high-throughput prediction pipelines and why collecting general antibody property...

After over 25 years as an intellectual property (IP) attorney, Jane Remillard, Nelson Mullins patents and biotechnology IP senior partner, is well-versed in navigating drug development and antibody patent law. In this episode, Remillard speaks with moderator Nimish Gera, Mythic Therapeutics vice president of biologics, about the intersection between science and law, the primary steps recommended to patent a scientific discovery, and how the antibody IP landscape has evolved in recent years....

Dr. Nimish Gera, Head of Biologics at Mythic Therapeutics, sits down with Christina Lingham, Executive Director of Conferences and Fellow at Cambridge Healthtech Institute, in this Episode of the Chain to talk about how the developability of bispecific antibodies topic came about, how the field is changing, new bispecific molecules coming through the pipeline, and his expectations for the future.

Rene Hoet is working for over 20 years in Biotech and Pharma Industry focusing on Antibody Research and development. Since April 1 2021 Rene works as Chief Scientific Officer at Montis Biosciences, Leuven, Belgium to develop the next generation Immuno-Oncology drugs using a novel approach interfering in the Tumor Endothelial Cell and Perivascular Macrophage Interactions to restore a immunocompetent tumor microenvironment. From Oct. 2018 till 26 March 2021 Rene worked as Chief Scientific...

A University of Alabama Birmingham researcher was frustrated with inconsistent solutions and processes for purifying unique proteins and set out to develop a new approach for high throughput protein purification. Thus was the seed idea for TriAltus Bioscience, which aims to bring protein purification technology from the research bench to the production environment. The Chain spoke with Bob Shufflebarger, CEO of TriAltus to give the background story and insights into future developments....

The Chain looks back to earlier this year when researchers virtually convened on the one-year anniversary of the first documented case of COVID-19 in the United States. This episode brings you a panel discussion from PepTalk Protein Science and Production Week, moderated by Karla Satchell, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and Co-Director of the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University. The panel discusses the role of data integration for the rapid R&D...