Firm’s ‘Immune Refresh’ strategy expands and rejuvenates bone marrow stem cells crucial to the operate of the human immune system.
Longevity biotech ImmuneAge Bio at this time emerged from stealth mode, revealing it has secured $2 million in preliminary funding to advance its platform centered on systemic rejuvenation of the human immune system. The Swiss-US firm has developed an strategy to rejuvenating the hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) present in bone marrow, that are the origin of assorted blood cells that assist the wholesome operate of the immune system.
With early backers together with the likes of former a16z common associate Balaji Srinivasan and former Novartis CEO Thomas Ebeling, ImmuneAge says its platform is able to increasing numbers of HSCs by 1,000-fold, which permits it to conduct high-throughput drug screening to establish new molecules that regulate immune cell getting older. Crucially, the corporate can be planning to make use of its know-how to allow a non-invasive outpatient process designed to “refresh” a person’s immune system utilizing their very own rejuvenated HSCs.
Longevity.Expertise: Whereas many present approaches to illness therapy contain stimulating and directing the immune cells of sufferers who’re already sick, ImmuneAge is concentrating on the getting older immune system itself. The corporate is based on the concept that the immune system governs getting older at a systemic degree, and that its rejuvenation could assist fight many age-related ailments, and doubtlessly even getting older itself. To study extra, we caught up with ImmuneAge founder and CEO, Sebastian Brunemeier.
A long life scientist by coaching, Brunemeier has been working within the subject his whole profession and can be a Common Accomplice at longevity VC Healthspan Capital. He beforehand co-founded Cambrian Biopharma and Samsara Therapeutics and was a principal at Apollo Well being Ventures.
“I’ve seen lots of firms engaged on mechanisms of motion to gradual getting older, and I believed I’d seen all of it,” he says. “However after I got here throughout bone marrow rejuvenation, it was clear that this was the bottom hanging fruit, with highest likelihood of success intervention that I’d seen.”
Brunemeier cites research that confirmed transplanting younger bone marrow into previous mice resulted in life extension enhancements of as much as 30%.
“No one has achieved an impact dimension that enormous for another intervention, that’s the world report,” he says. “The issue is, you may’t transplant younger bone marrow into an previous human, until it’s an ideal genetic match. So, until you’ve got a clone that’s 20 years youthful than you, that’s not an choice.”
Refreshing the immune system
That is the place ImmuneAge is available in. Leveraging analysis carried out by College of Oxford professor Adam Wilkinson, the corporate’s long-term imaginative and prescient is of a extensively out there therapy that entails extracting your personal bone marrow cells, dramatically increasing their numbers and rejuvenating them within the lab, earlier than placing them again into your physique.
“We name this the ‘Immune Refresh’ remedy,” says Brunemeier. “Like an oil change or a tune up in your automobile, we envisage that after a sure age, you’ll go in for a easy outpatient process that’s already extensively used around the globe in bone marrow transplant to extract your HSCs out of your blood. We develop them 1000-fold utilizing our proprietary technique, which holds the world report for HSC enlargement. Then we rejuvenate the cells ex vivo utilizing our in-house cocktails of compounds and infuse them again into the bloodstream, the place they dwelling to the bone marrow, which can be how bone marrow transplants work.”
In bone marrow transplants, sufferers with leukemia or extreme autoimmune ailments are additionally given chemotherapy that kills the prevailing bone marrow, however ImmuneAge is concentrating on wholesome sufferers, so this step fortunately isn’t required.
“We simply take a little bit bit out, develop, rejuvenate, reinfuse,” says Brunemeier. “We’re simply aiming to provide your immune system extra ammunition, and we’re most likely solely about two to two-and-a-half years from placing this technique into the clinic.”
Immune-enhancing drug recognized
Whereas its Immune Refresh therapy is a longer-term play, ImmuneAge has additionally used its screening platform to establish potential medicine able to delivering immune system advantages.
“We’ve already recognized a small molecule – a capsule that enhances immune operate higher than something revealed beforehand,” says Brunemeier. “By way of our collaborators in Switzerland we’re seeing a big immune response to pathogens and most cancers, and it makes the immune system look youthful when it comes to the hallmarks of immune getting older. It additionally seems to have lots of different results past boosting the immune system – enhancing autophagy, mitochondrial biogenesis and extra.”
ImmuneAge isn’t prepared to disclose the particular particulars of the compound fairly but, however Brunemeier says that analysis teams around the globe have demonstrated it reveals advantages in different fashions of illness.
“This fundamental mechanism of motion, this scaffold, appears to work in many alternative animal fashions of illness,” he says. “It really works neurodegenerative fashions, it really works in weight problems, it really works in cardiometabolic illness, however only a few compounds like this have been progressed within the clinic as common boosters of immune operate. And that’s what we’re seeking to do.”
ImmuneAge is at present engaged on the unique “scaffold” compound to enhance on its properties by medicinal chemistry, making what Brunemeier refers to as a “turbocharged model.”
“It’s a pure product and it’s not very bioavailable and it has another liabilities, so we have to enhance upon it, no less than a little bit,” he says. “We’re a few yr and a half from placing that compound within the clinic, and our lead indication will most likely be enhancing vaccine response within the aged.”
