BOSTON – Jan. 5, 2022 – BAKX Therapeutics, a company developing safer, more effective therapeutics that fully realize the potential of the mitochondrial apoptosis pathways, today announced that Lani Wu, PhD and Steven Altschuler, PhD of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Pharmacy, and Patricia LoRusso, DO, a practicing academic medical oncologist performing clinical/translational research at Yale School of Medicine, have joined its Scientific Advisory Board.
Dr. LoRusso has more than 25 years of expertise in medical oncology, drug development and early phase clinical trials as a practicing academic medical oncologist performing clinical and translational research. She currently oversees Phase 1 clinical trials design and execution in her role as Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Associate Cancer Center Director, Experimental Therapeutics and Innovative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine. She also leads efforts at the Phase I clinical trials infusion center at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven. Previously, she served in numerous leadership roles at Wayne State University’s Barbara Karmanos Cancer Institute, most recently as director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program and of the Eisenberg Center for Experimental Therapeutics.
Over the past two decades, the collaborative labs of Drs. Wu and Altschuler, both Professors, Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF, have pioneered systems-biology approaches to disentangle phenotypic cellular heterogeneity and identify molecular mechanisms and design principles of biological networks. This work has led to new understandings of how cells and tissues create spatial patterns and cancer cells make cell fate decisions during and after drug treatment. Both Dr. Wu and Dr. Altschuler have held numerous academic positions, including at The Institute for Advanced Studies and Princeton, Harvard University and the University of Southwestern Medical Center, as well as industrial positions at Microsoft, Google and Rosetta Bioinformatics.
“BAKX brings together the world’s most comprehensive knowledge of the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway with industry leading structure-based drug design, computational drug discovery technique and medicinal chemistry capability,” said Jessie M. English, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, BAKX. “Our scientific advisory board is chaired by Dr. Loren Walensky of Dana Farber Cancer Institute and also includes Dr. Ross Levine of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, Dr. Amit Verma of Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Dr. Evripidis Gavathiotis of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Together they bring profound expertise in hematology, oncology and in apoptosis, as well as deep clinical perspective. Dr. LoRusso brings extensive experience in early stage clinical trial design and development, while the additions of Drs. Wu and Altschuler bring additional expertise in cell fate decision making and computational systems biology approaches. We’re delighted to welcome them to the team and to solidify our leading position in apoptosis related drug development.”
About BAKX Therapeutics
BAKX brings together world leading expertise in apoptosis, and computational design aligned with medicinal chemistry, for creating therapies for cancer and other diseases. The comprehensive BAKX drug discovery platform is designed with the power to fully realize the potential of the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. The company’s lead therapeutic asset BKX-001 (partnered with Ipsen) targets the BAX protein. In addition, the BAKX platform is deployed towards drugging other undisclosed apoptosis targets implicated in various solid tumors and the build up of resistance to other cancer treatments. bakxtx.com
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