Sonoma Biotherapeutics is partnering with Regeneron to co-develop cell therapies for Crohn’s disease and other autoimmune conditions. The agreement comes with a $75 million upfront payment and a potential $45 million milestone payment to Sonoma by Regeneron, a Tarrytown, N.Y.-based biotech giant. The deal builds on a massive $265 million Series B round raised in 2021 by Sonoma, a three-year old startup that…
Tiara Schwarze-Taufiq traces her love of science to a young age. She recalls browsing educational websites that detailed a wide variety of diseases and medical conditions. After zeroing in on the brain as a fifth grader, the future scientist began to think about a career in medicine. “From a philosophical and a scientific standpoint, I am really drawn to the…
THE BREAD MACHINE Anne McCloskey bought sits idle in her Magnolia home. So do her new gardening supplies. Her burgeoning collectible book and textbook business is on indefinite hiatus. The 56-year-old gives a disbelieving sort of laugh over Zoom as she recounts her initial pandemic aspirations. “I was going to have a good time and just be kind of isolated while…
Dr. Joshua Liao, associate professor (General Internal Medicine) and associate chair for health systems, and Dr. Andrew Stergachis, assistant professor (Medical Genetics) have been selected by the Puget Sound Business Journal as two of its 40 under 40 most important and influential young leaders in the Puget Sound region. This is the 25th annual 40 Under 40 awards. This year’s honorees come from a variety…
The thymus is an intricate organ consisting of a diverse population of thymic epithelial cells (TECs). Cortical and medullary TECs and their subpopulations have distinct roles in coordinating the development and selection of functionally competent and self-tolerant T cells. Recent advances made in technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing have made it possible to investigate and resolve the heterogeneity in…
Ghrelin is a potential therapy for cachexia due to its orexigenic properties and anabolic effects on muscle and fat. However, its clinical use is limited by the short half-life of active (acylated) ghrelin (~11 min in humans). EXT418 is a novel long-acting, constitutively active ghrelin analog created by covalently linking it to a vitamin D derivative. Here, we evaluated the…
Clay Siegall is proud of his legacy as co-founder and longtime CEO of Seagen, the largest biotech company in the Seattle area. “I built a great company,” Siegall said in an exclusive interview with GeekWire on Wednesday. He co-founded the company then known as Seattle Genetics in 1997, helped bring it public in 2001 and oversaw the approval of four oncology…
A potential new genetic risk factor for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been discovered by researchers at the University of Washington. The scientists say a mutation in which a region of the WDR7 gene is repeated more times than usual may increase the risk of ALS. “We believe that this expansion acts as a genetic modifier to disease susceptibility, as in the repeat on…
Spending time in a cancer center is low on just about everyone’s list. But cancer happens and if it happens to you or a loved one, you want the treatment done in a place that’s warm and welcoming and with luck, soon just a speck in your rearview mirror. You want life beyond cancer to become a reality as soon…
One might think those three phrases could be excerpts from an introduction honoring a world class scientist at an international event, not a 27-year-old doctoral candidate about to complete her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Since arriving in Seattle in 2017, Samantha Schuster has demonstrated those professional characteristics – and more – in her graduate work at Fred Hutchinson…
