Biotech Notes

[XenaLives]

Epigenetic change due to environmental factors is a very real threat to humanity. It was great to see a company like this working on the problem:

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NEWS
3rd September 2018

STORM Therapeutics and the University of Cambridge receive Innovate UK funding to help the fight against cancer
STORM Therapeutics, the drug discovery company focused on the discovery of small molecule therapies modulating RNA epigenetics, and The University of Cambridge announced today that they have been granted a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP). The Grant, of up to £240,000, is to develop an analysis platform using the data warehouse software InterMine to help STORM advance its cancer research.

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10th May 2018

STORM Therapeutics to present at Bio€quity Europe 2018
STORM Therapeutics, the drug discovery company focused on the discovery of small molecule therapies modulating RNA epigenetics, today announced that it will be giving a company presentation at Bio€quity Europe 2018, Ghent, Belgium, 14 - 16 May 2018.

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27th March 2018

STORM Therapeutics wins Life Science Innovation Award
STORM Therapeutics, the drug discovery company focused on the discovery of small molecule therapies modulating RNA epigenetics, today announced that it has won the Life Science Innovation Award at the Business Weekly Awards ceremony.

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29th January 2018

STORM Therapeutics Appoints Distinguished Professor and Nobel Prize Winner Professor Thomas Cech as Scientific Advisor
STORM Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Nobel Prize Winner Professor Thomas Cech as a Scientific Advisor. This appointment follows STORM Therapeutics’ successful Series A Financing Extension announced in January 2018.

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8th January 2018

STORM Therapeutics Extends Series A Round to Include New Investor Taiho Ventures
Storm Therapuetics today announced that it has raised an additional £4 million of funding from Taiho Ventures, LLC the strategic corporate venture capital arm of Taiho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.

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https://www.stormtherapeutics.com/news-events/news/

Thomas Cech
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Thomas Cech
Thomas Robert Cech.jpg
Thomas Cech
Born December 8, 1947 (age 71)
Chicago, USA
Alma mater Grinnell College (B.A., 1970)
University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., 1975)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Postdoctoral)
Known for Ribozyme
Awards Newcomb Cleveland Prize (1986)
NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1987)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989)
National Medal of Science (1995)
Othmer Gold Medal (2007)

Scientific career
Institutions University of Colorado, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Thomas Robert Cech (born December 8, 1947) is an American chemist who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, for their discovery of the catalytic properties of RNA. Cech discovered that RNA could itself cut strands of RNA, suggesting that life might have started as RNA.[1] He also studied telomeres, and his lab discovered an enzyme, TERT (telomerase reverse transcriptase), which is part of the process of restoring telomeres after they are shortened during cell division.[2] As president of Howard Hughes Medical Institute, he promoted science education, and he teaches an undergraduate chemistry course at the University of Colorado.

Research
Cech's main research area is that of the process of transcription in the nucleus of cells. He studies how the genetic code of DNA is transcribed into RNA. In the 1970s, Cech had been studying the splicing of RNA in the unicellular organism Tetrahymena thermophila when he discovered that an unprocessed RNA molecule could splice itself. In 1982, Cech became the first to show that RNA molecules are not restricted to being passive carriers of genetic information – they can have catalytic functions and can participate in cellular reactions. RNA-processing reactions and protein synthesis on ribosomes in particular are catalysed by RNA. RNA enzymes are known as ribozymes and have provided a new tool for gene technology. They also have the potential to provide new therapeutic agents – for example, they have the ability to destroy and cleave invading, viral RNAs.

Cech's second area of research is on telomeres, the structure that protects the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres are shortened with every duplication of DNA, and must be lengthened again. He studies telomerase, the enzyme that copies the telomeric sequences and lengthens them. The active site protein subunits of telomerase comprise a new class of reverse transcriptases, enzymes previously thought to be restricted to viruses and transposable elements. Telomerase is activated in 90% of human cancers. Therefore, a drug that would inhibit its activity could be useful in treating cancer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cech