Neoleukin Therapeutics Announces Scientific Advisory Board Preeminent leaders in protein design, structural biology and immunology

SEATTLE, Dec. 05, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Neoleukin Therapeutics, Inc. “Neoleukin” (NASDAQ:NLTX), a biopharmaceutical company utilizing sophisticated computational methods to design de novo protein therapeutics, today announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board comprised of leaders in the fields of de novo protein design, structural biology and immunology.

“This distinguished group of scientific leaders will provide Neoleukin with advice and guidance as we continue expanding our research and development efforts, including our pioneering work in de novo design of protein therapeutics,” said Daniel-Adriano Silva, Ph.D., Vice President Head of Research at Neoleukin.

“I look forward to working with the other members to advise on current and future research activities as Neoleukin continues to forge new ground in computationally designed therapeutic proteins,” said David Baker, Ph.D., co-founder of Neoleukin and Director of the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design, UW School of Medicine professor of biochemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

Members of the Neoleukin Scientific Advisory Board include:

David Baker, Ph.D. – Professor of Biochemistry, Director of the Institute for Protein Design, Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, and Physics at the University of Washington. Dr. Baker’s research group is a world leader in computational protein design and protein structure prediction. 

Gonçalo Bernandes, Ph.D. – Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, U.K. and Director of the Chemical Biology and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Unit at the Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Portugal. Dr. Bernandes’ research group develops innovative site-selective chemical methods to re-design the structure and activity of proteins for therapeutic purposes.

Michael Dougan, M.D., Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an assistant in Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital. As an independent investigator, Dr. Dougan has focused his research efforts on understanding the etiology and immune mechanisms underlying immune-related adverse events (irAEs) resulting from cancer immunotherapy.

Michael Levitt, Ph.D. – Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Levitt is a recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel, for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.”

Marion Pepper, Ph.D. – Associate Professor, Immunology in the Department of Immunology at the University of Washington. Dr. Pepper’s research focuses on the development and function of adaptive immune responses in response to allergy and infection.

Ingrid Swanson Pultz, Ph.D. – Chief Scientific Officer of PvP Biologics. Dr. Pultz’s research interests include harnessing the power of computational enzyme design to enable the engineering of targeted, next generation therapeutics. She is a founder of PvP Biologics and an inventor of PvP’s gluten-degrading enzyme technology.

K. Dane Wittrup, Ph.D. – Carbon P. Dubbs Professor in Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Director for Engineering, Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Dr. Wittrup’s laboratory is developing powerful new tools for protein engineering, applying them to particular disease targets, and improving the understanding of protein structure/function relationships.

About Neoleukin Therapeutics, Inc.
Neoleukin is a biopharmaceutical company creating next generation immunotherapies for cancer, inflammation, and autoimmunity using de novo protein design technology. Neoleukin uses sophisticated computational methods to design proteins that demonstrate specific pharmaceutical properties that provide potentially superior therapeutic benefit over native proteins. Neoleukin’s lead product candidate, NL-201, is a combined IL-2 and IL-15 agonist designed to eliminate alpha receptor binding. For more information, please visit the Neoleukin website: www.neoleukin.com.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements
Certain of the statements made in this press release are forward looking, including those relating to evaluation of our pipeline and strategic options, potential timing of preclinical data, the sufficiency of our cash resources and other statements containing the words “anticipate,” “believe,” “expect,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “potential,” “will,” “would,” “could,” “continue,” and similar expressions. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those anticipated, including, but not limited to, risks and uncertainties related to: clinical drug development is a lengthy and expensive process with an uncertain outcome; our ability to identify or acquire additional clinical candidates, our ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval for any future product candidates and the potential safety, efficacy or clinical utility of or any future product candidates. Actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected or implied in these forward-looking statements. More information about the risks and uncertainties faced by Neoleukin is contained in the company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Neoleukin disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contacts:

Media
Julie Rathbun
206-769-9219
jrathbun@neoleukin.com

Investors
Solebury Trout
Brian Korb
646-378-2923
bkorb@troutgroup.com