Translational and Regenerative Immunotherapy for Spontaneous Disease in Dogs

LEAH Labs is bringing regenerative immunotherapy to dogs. We use gene editing to enable the translation of cell therapies from successful application in humans into the canine market. We aim to treat spontaneous, naturally occurring disease in dogs as a clear unmet business need, while also using dogs as a model to better inform human therapeutic intervention.

LifEngine Animal Health Laboratories Incorporated
Wesley Wierson, PhD
2020-2021

Molecular Farming of BMPs and Fibronectin for Commercialization

We have seven specific milestones with the goal of making bone morphogenetic protein and fibronectin (used to promote bone repair) that is significantly less expensive than current materials, which will open the door to many new markets such as 3D printing that are cost prohibitive today. There is a large market for fibronectin that is not currently being met. We are developing optimization to scale the production to meet this demand. We strive to make the materials faster, safer, and at a reduced cost.

MNPHARM SBC
Dave Roeser
2020-2021

Human glial progenitor cells for radiation‐induced brain injury

Brain irradiation is the standard of treatment for most brain tumors. Irradiating the brain prolongs patient survival, but often results in long term memory and functional impairments. These deficits are driven by radiation injury to myelinating cells, oligodendrocytes. One method to prevent deficits is to replace myelin by transplanting in new stem cells to the brain. We will test the safety and effectiveness of human glial cells to protect the brain in a model of radiation‐induced brain injury during therapy for brain cancer.

Mayo Clinic
Terry Burns, MD, PhD

Activating the Hippo pathway effector YAP to augment liver regeneration

The goal of this proposal is to speed up liver regeneration by activation a regeneration pathway with a drug treatment. This will be tested in multiple models, including models in which regeneration is not as good at baseline. Positive results would provide a potential treatment to improve liver function in patients suffering from liver failure.

Year 1 Progress Report:

Mayo Clinic
Rory Smoot, MD
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