"I am enthusiastic at the rapid pace, and translationally-focused approach that Regen BioPharma is taking to turn these findings into clinically-relevant approaches to helping cancer patients," stated David Koos, Chairman & CEO. "One of the fascinating results of the experiments that will be presented is that gene-silencing of NR2F6 results not in death of the leukemic cells but a type of 'repair' in that normal blood production ensues. This approach to curing cancer by "healing" the malignancy, to my knowledge, is highly innovative and I am pleased with the strong interest in this work that we have been receiving."
Dr. Christine Ichim found that the NR2F6 gene is essential for the process of cancer formation, thus potentially offering a new target for development of targeted therapies," said Dr. Thomas Ichim, Regen BioPharma's Chief Scientific Officer.
"It is important to note that when inhibition of this gene with gene silencing was performed, the leukemic cells reverted back to a state resembling non-malignant cells. Thus we believe that developing therapies that block NR2F6 could lead to a whole new class of targeted therapeutics," according to Christine Ichim, PhD.
Currently Regen BioPharma is developing small molecule inhibitors of NR2F6, as well as shRNA gene-silencing of this gene. Gene-silencing has previously been utilized by Regen BioPharma in development of its dCellVax breast cancer vaccine IND application, as well as in peer-reviewed publications that Regen has co-authored(3, 4).
Intellectual property covering the use of NR2F6, as well as means of targeting it, was filed by the University of Toronto with Dr. Christine Ichim, and hematologist Dr. Richard Wells as inventors. All patent and intellectual property rights to this patent application were acquired by Regen BioPharma.
