GigaGen Announces Appointment of Erica Stone, Ph.D., as Director, Immuno-Oncology

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., /PRNewswire/ -- GigaGen Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibody therapies, today announced that Erica Stone, Ph.D., has joined the company as director, immuno-oncology.

“We welcome award-winning immunologist Dr. Stone to the GigaGen team,” said Dave Johnson, Ph.D., CEO of GigaGen. “Dr. Stone brings with her a deep understanding of the tumor microenvironment and checkpoint inhibitors that is perfectly paired with our novel antibody discovery and engineering platform, Surge. Surge enables us to uncover new antibodies that have historically been missed by traditional discovery methods such as hybridoma, and with Dr. Stone’s expertise we look forward to identifying immuno-oncology drug candidates with the greatest potential to improve patient treatment.”

“The field of immuno-oncology is producing therapies that are immensely powerful for some cancer patients,” said Dr. Stone. “GigaGen leads the industry with their innovative antibody discovery technology that allows new insight into immune system function. I look forward to using these insights to better understand the biological mechanisms behind cancer resistance to existing therapies so that we can identify new first-in-class treatments for patients.”

Prior to joining GigaGen Dr. Stone served as an assistant professor in the Immunology, Microenvironment and Metastasis Program at The Wistar Institute, a world leader in early-stage discovery science in the areas of cancer, immunology and infectious disease. Her laboratory focused on understanding mechanisms of action of first-generation immune checkpoint inhibitors including anti-CTLA4.

Dr. Stone received her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UC San Diego where she also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory of Stephen Hedrick working on T-cell differentiation and function. Dr. Stone’s work is widely published in leading peer-reviewed journals and she has received multiple investigative grants and awards including the Chambers-Thermo Fisher Scientific Memorial Award from the American Association of Immunology (AAI).

About GigaGen
GigaGen is a privately-held, preclinical biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibody therapies to treat diseases of immune dysregulation. GigaGen’s deep understanding of immune dysregulation is enabled by industry-leading technology that quickly captures the genetic makeup of entire immune repertoires to analyze B cells at a rate of millions per hour, while simultaneously identifying their antigen and protein binders. GigaGen has a robust internal pipeline consisting of novel antibodies against immuno-oncology targets, in addition to the first recombinant intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) for patients with immune deficiency. For more information visit www.GigaGen.com.

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SOURCE GigaGen Inc.