Omeros Corporation (Nasdaq: OMER), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing small-molecule and protein therapeutics for large-market as well as orphan indications targeting inflammation, immunologic diseases (e.g., complement-mediated diseases and cancers) and central nervous system disorders, today announced preliminary results from the Phase 1 clinical trial of its MASP-3 inhibitor OMS906. The ongoing trial is designed as a…
Nautilus Biotechnology, Inc., a company pioneering a single-molecule protein analysis platform for quantifying the proteome, today announced the completion of its business combination with Arya Sciences Acquisition Corp III (Nasdaq: ARYA; or “Arya III”), a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) sponsored by Perceptive Advisors. The combined company, Nautilus Biotechnology, Inc. (“Nautilus”), will commence trading shares of its common stock under…
Our June faculty spotlight is on Dr. Steven Disharoon, clinical assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Disharoon received his medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, and completed his internship and residency at Oregon Health & Science University. Wanting to pursue a career where he could have involvement in education, quality improvement, and be able to work…
UW Medicine was one of the clinical trial sites for aducanumab, a drug approved by the FDA to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The drug created by Biogen is not a cure and it’s not for everyone. But researchers say it marks a new era in Alzheimer’s research, with more potential treatments in the pipeline. Around the country, the…
Protein nanomaterial design is an emerging discipline with applications in medicine and beyond. A long-standing design approach uses genetic fusion to join protein homo-oligomer subunits via α-helical linkers to form more complex symmetric assemblies, but this method is hampered by linker flexibility and a dearth of geometric solutions. Here, we describe a general computational method for rigidly fusing homo-oligomer and…
Icosavax, Inc. today announced the first subjects have been dosed with IVX-411, a virus-like particle (VLP) displaying the SARS-CoV-2 receptor-binding domain (RBD), in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial. As previously announced, the Phase 1/2 trial is being funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Amgen is manufacturing a key intermediate, and Seqirus is providing its proprietary MF59® adjuvant for…
Washington State University researchers hope that their tool to rapidly grow cancer-killing T cells can someday make a difference in fighting the disease. Under the guidance of Professor Bernard Van Wie, graduate students Kitana Kaiphanliam and Brenden Fraser-Hevlin are working to commercialize a bioreactor that is able to grow 25 times more of the valuable T cells than current technology…
My lab studies how the early vertebrate embryo forms using zebrafish as a model system. While it has been known for a very long time that the vertebrate embryo forms progressively from the head to the tail, one of the key recent discoveries is that most of the vertebrate body comes from a unique bipotent progenitor that can produce either neurons or muscle cells, depending on the signals that the progenitor cell receives.
President Joe Biden’s newly installed science adviser says he understands why scientists are baffled by rules intended to prevent other nations from unfairly benefiting from U.S. science. In recent years, the U.S. government has cracked down on requiring federally funded scientists to report any sources of foreign funding—and has even prosecuted some who failed to follow the rules. But the effort has…
We present a live-attenuated RNA hybrid vaccine technology which uses an RNA vaccine delivery vehicle to deliver in vitro-transcribed full-length live-attenuated viral genomes to the site of vaccination. This technology allows ready manufacturing in a cell-free environment, regardless of viral attenuation level, and promises to avoid many safety and manufacturing challenges of traditional live-attenuated vaccines. We demonstrate this technology through…
