Of Note

Biotech Co-Founded by TSRI’s Kerri Mowen Among ‘10 Start-Ups to Watch’

A biotech company co-founded by Kerri Mowen, assistant professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been named one of “10 Start-Ups to Watch” by Chemical & Engineering News (C&E) in its November 2 cover story. Covering a wide range of fields, the young companies are “all using groundbreaking chemistry to solve real-world problems,” according to the publication.

Mowen and Paul Thompson, a University of Massachusetts Medical School biochemist, founded Padlock Therapeutics in 2014 to develop small molecule treatments of autoimmune diseases, based on biological and structural insights of the PAD (protein arginine deiminase) family of enzymes. The biotech hopes to develop its first compound—likely a PAD4-selective allosteric inhibitor for lupus—for clinical testing in early 2017.

C&E’s picks are available on the publication’s website. For a list of TSRI’s more than 50 spin-off companies, see the institute’s website.

Send comments to: mikaono[at]scripps.edu

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Of Note

Biotech Co-Founded by TSRI’s Kerri Mowen Among ‘10 Start-Ups to Watch’