CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Cequent Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in the development of novel products to deliver RNAi-based treatments to prevent and treat human disease, announced that the co-inventor of the company’s tkRNAi technology, Johannes Fruehauf, MD, will head Cequent’s scientific leadership team as director of pre-clinical and clinical development. Jens Harborth, PhD, has been named associate director, RNAi research. The company also announced that it has moved into its new headquarters and laboratory space at One Kendall Square -- in the heart of the Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology corridor.
“We are delighted that Johannes has agreed to lead our distinguished team of scientists,” said Cequent President and CEO, Peter Parker. “While at BIDMC, he oversaw the early pre-clinical development work for tkRNAi delivery technology along with Cequent Founder and Director, Chiang J. Li, MD. Johannes’s work is well-regarded in the gastrointestinal and cancer research communities -- he is a lead author in prominent publications and a popular presenter at important conferences worldwide. Most important for Cequent, he has the experience and know-how to lead a development team and work with external partners to move from initial concept through product development and into clinical trials.”
Dr. Fruehauf came to Cequent from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Harvard Medical School, where he was a senior research fellow and manager of laboratory operations at the GI Cancer Laboratory. He received his MD with honors from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and was trained as an obstetrician/gynecologist at the University Hospital Mannheim. His research work in oncology won numerous prizes, including a Young Investigator Award at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference in 2000. In 2002, Dr. Fruehauf joined the BIDMC/Harvard GI Cancer Laboratory on a junior faculty development scholarship. There, he focused on developing RNAi based therapies for cancer and invented the method of transkingdom RNA interference, along with co- inventors Chiang J. Li and Shuanglin Xiang, which is the basis for Cequent’s technology.
Before being named Cequent’s associate director, RNAi research, Jens Harborth was senior scientist at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he was responsible for research and development of therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi). In May 2001, Dr. Harborth and colleagues at Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry published a paper in Nature demonstrating that short double-stranded RNA sequences (known as small interfering RNAs, or siRNAs) effectively shut down protein production for the first time in mammalian cells. At Alnylam, he extended the research and was successful in demonstrating that RNAi works in vivo (mice and non-human primates). These results were again published in Nature in 2004 and 2006, respectively. He received his venia legendi (habilitation) and a PhD in biochemistry from Georg-August University of Gottingen, Germany.
Commenting on Jens Harborth, Mr. Parker said, “We are also delighted to have Jens Harborth join Cequent. Jens has done pioneering work in the RNAi field and will be a key resource to all of our scientists as we apply tkRNAi to other diseases outside of gastroenterology.”
In addition, the company announced that the following group leaders have joined Cequent’s scientific staff:
-- Natalya Bodyak, PhD -- Group Leader, In Vivo Biology (BIDMC/Harvard Medical School) -- Moreshwar Vaze, PhD -- Group Leader, Microbiology (Boston Biomedical, Arqule, Cyclis Pharma) -- A.J. Wang, PhD -- Group Leader, Molecular Biology (Boston Biomedical, Arqule, Cyclis Pharma)
About Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
An early-stage biopharmaceutical company, Cequent is pioneering the development of novel therapeutics to prevent and treat a wide range of human diseases -- from inflammatory diseases to cancer -- based on the company’s proprietary technology, TransKingdom RNA interference (tkRNAi(TM)). Cequent’s first products, now in pre-clinical development, are drug candidates targeting colon-cancer prevention and inflammatory bowel disease. The company designed its powerful tkRNAi technology to deactivate specific disease-causing genes safely and effectively, using non-pathogenic bacteria as an engine to produce and deliver RNAi directly into cells. It is based on ground-breaking scientific research originating at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. A privately held company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cequent was established in 2006. For more information, visit www.cequentpharma.com
Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CONTACT: Caroline Grossman of Cequent Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,+1-781-771-5579, caroline.grossman@gmail.com
Web site: http://www.cequentpharma.com/
