InsideOutBio is focused on the immunotherapy of cancers, exploiting newly discovered pathways to overcome tumor-induced suppression of host immune responses
These pathways are not expressed in normal cells but represent the response of stressed cells to viruses and inflammation. Of note is that the pathways are expressed in tumour stromal cells, such as fibroblasts that support the growth of cancer cells.
While these pathways represent a tumour vulnerability, they are not normally activated in these malignant tissues. When triggered, they activate a cell death response produced that is highly inflammatory and synergizes with current immunotherapeutics like anti-PD1 to produce tumor regression in pre-clinical models of melanoma. InsideOutBio is developing small molecules to trigger these pathways in tumors.
Examining Z-RNA and Z-DNA
InsideOutBio is a virtual company, using CRO’s and consultants to advance projects. The company has many academic collaborators and has co-authored many articles in open-source, peer-reviewed journals. The papers have established the biological framework for the therapeutics under development by InsideOutBio.
The pathways targeted detect the presence of the unusual left-handed double-stranded nucleic acid conformations of Z-RNA and Z-DNA that can be induced within the cell by small molecules. Normally Z-RNA or Z-DNA are formed under physiological conditions by genetic levels called flipons that regulate gene expression, High levels of Z-DNA or Z-RNA indicate that a cell has become dysregulated or infected by virus. Programmed cell death pathways are then triggered to resolve the threat. It is exactly this response that InsideOutBio activates to eliminate cancer cells.
Getting to know InsideOutBio
InsideOutBio is located in Charlestown, Massachusetts, US, and is incorporated in Delaware. InsideOutBio was founded by Dr. Alan Herbert who was trained at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Following his time at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston University, he joined Merck & Co before starting InsideOutBio.
He has published in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from biophysics to human genetics to cancer biology using a variety of experimental and analytical approaches extending from bench science to deep learning from large genomic datasets.
