TARA Biosystems, a biotechnology company using human biology and data for cardiac drug discovery, has collaborated with Scipher Medicine, a precision medicine company. The collaboration will address a critical unmet need for effective therapeutics in cardiac laminopathies.
Cardiac laminopathies, associated with mutations in the LMNA gene, can result in electrical and mechanical changes in the heart. These changes can have profound clinical consequences, including cardiomyopathy, sudden cardiac death, and end-stage heart failure. At present, there are no therapies that correct the underlying pathologies.
“This collaboration demonstrates the transformative potential of combining biology-driven data with network biology to further drug discovery and development and unlock new medicines and therapeutics,” said Misti Ushio, CEO of TARA Biosystems.
“The Spectra platform uniquely integrates AI with the protein network of human cells to identify novel targets in highly complex and debilitating diseases such as laminopathy,” said Slava Akmaev, PhD, CTO, and Head of Therapeutics at Scipher Medicine. “By interrogating the network neighborhood of LMNA and its relationship with the proteins appropriate for targeted therapeutics we are confident that we can identify several novel and relevant drug targets.”
“The TARA platform is highly versatile and can capture robust physiologic endpoints of human cardiac function, including contractility, electrophysiology, calcium signaling, structure, as well as genomic, proteomic, and metabolic profiles,” said Robert Langer, PhD, Board of Directors at TARA Biosystems. “We believe that TARA and Scipher combined efforts have the potential to lead to drug development that enables a truly personalised treatment for patients.”
