CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Casma
Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company harnessing the process
of autophagy to design powerful new medicines, today announced the
appointments of Sascha Martens, Ph.D., and Pietro De Camilli, M.D., as
the first members of Casma’s scientific advisory board.
Martens, an expert in autophagy research, is currently professor and
head of the department of biochemistry and cell biology at the Max F.
Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) at the University of Vienna, Austria. De
Camilli is based at the Yale School of Medicine, where he is the John
Klingenstein Professor of Neuroscience and professor of cell biology,
chair of the department of neuroscience and director of the Kavli
Institute for Neuroscience. Professor De Camilli is also an investigator
at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“I am excited to establish a scientific advisory board to help guide us
as we pioneer a new class of therapies to stop or reverse disease
progression,” said Leon Murphy, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Casma
Therapeutics. “Sascha and Pietro bring diverse and prolific research
experience across the fields of autophagy, membrane dynamics,
fundamental cell biology and neuroscience, and they will no doubt
provide valuable insight as we advance our mission to leverage the
natural process of autophagy to treat both rare and common diseases.”
Sascha Martens has worked at the MFPL, University of Vienna for
nearly 10 years in roles of increasing seniority. As a principal
investigator, Martens leads research on the foundations of autophagy,
exploring how the numerous factors required for autophagy work together
to form the autophagosomes that engulf and dispose of harmful cellular
material. He is the author of dozens of papers on the factors and
processes involved in autophagy and has received several prestigious
research grants, including the Human Frontier Science Program grant and
the European Research Council Consolidator grant. He has a diploma
degree in biology and a Ph.D. in genetics from the Institute for
Genetics of the University of Cologne, Germany, where he was awarded the
Klaus Liebrecht Prize for one of the two best master or Ph.D. studies
within the university’s math and science departments. He conducted
postdoctoral research at the Institute for Genetics of the University of
Cologne, Germany and at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of
Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K.
“The scientific community is advancing our understanding of autophagy
and its role in disease every day, not only in my lab but across
academia,” Martens said. “I look forward to advising the Casma team as
they apply our advances to treat disorders with high unmet need.”
Pietro De Camilli joined the Yale School of Medicine in 1988 and
subsequently became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator in
1992. He served for three years as chair of the department of cell
biology and was the founding director of the Yale Program in Cellular
Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair. As a principal investigator,
he leads research on the cell biology of neuronal synapses, with the
long-term goal of advancing understanding of nervous system function in
human disease. De Camilli was awarded the Julius Axelrod Prize from the
Society for Neuroscience in 2015. He is an elected member of the
National Academy of Sciences (USA), the National Academy of Medicine
(USA), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the European
Molecular Biology Organization, among other organizations. In 2017 he
served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology. He earned
his M.D. from the University of Milan, Italy and has a postgraduate
degree in medical endocrinology from the University of Pavia in Italy.
“I have dedicated much of my career to understanding mechanistic and
physiological processes whose dysfunction leads to disease,” De Camilli
said. “It is invigorating to observe and advise as companies like Casma
make strides to translate those discoveries into therapies that may
reverse the course of neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders.”
About Casma Therapeutics
Casma Therapeutics is harnessing
the natural cellular process of autophagy to open vast new target areas
for drug discovery and development. Casma uses several approaches to
intervene at strategic points throughout the autophagy-lysosome system
to improve the cellular process of clearing out unwanted proteins,
organelles and invading pathogens. By boosting autophagy, Casma expects
to be able to arrest or reverse the progression of lysosomal storage
disorders, muscle disorders, inflammatory disorders and
neurodegeneration, among other indications. Casma was launched in 2018
by Third Rock Ventures and is based in Cambridge, Mass. For more
information, please visit www.casmatx.com.
Contacts
Ten Bridge Communications
Stephanie Simon, 617-581-9333
stephanie@tenbridgecommunications.com