SeqLL Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board

BILLERICA, Mass., March 21, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SeqLL Inc. (“SeqLL” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: SQL; SQLLW), a technology company providing life sciences instrumentation and research services for collaborative partnerships, today announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board (“SAB”) comprised of distinguished and world-renowned leaders of the scientific community. The SAB will discuss with management potential new development opportunities that leverage the Company’s unique True Single Molecule Sequencing (tSMS®) technology across the “omics” fields, as well as advise management with their existing collaborative, scientific, & development partnerships. Each leader has previously utilized the tSMS platform and will leverage their expertise to provide valuable insight to our company.

“We are privileged to be working with this distinguished and talented group of scientific advisors as we expand the reach of our tSMS technology,” said Daniel Jones, CEO, President, and Co-Founder of SeqLL. “These advisors bring valuable scientific insight and industry contacts to our work and will assist us in becoming a world-class leader in creating novel assets with our true single molecule sequencing technology.”

Leaders of the SeqLL Scientific Advisory Board include:

Claes Wahlestedt, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the SAB. Director of the Center for Therapeutic Innovation, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. Dr. Wahlestedt has a long-standing academic as well as big pharma career in drug discovery, genomics and epigenetics, and has pioneered various translational efforts in these fields. From 2005 to 2011, Dr. Wahlestedt was a professor and a director at The Scripps Research Institute. Prior to that he founded and ran the genomics and bioinformatics center at the Karolinska Institute (a joint venture with Pharmacia/Pfizer). Among companies he has co-founded are CuRNA (now part of Opko Health/Camp4), based on his patent for targeting regulatory noncoding RNAs to up-regulate therapeutic proteins, and Epigenetix Inc., focusing on small molecule drugs for a variety of drug targets in cancer and neuroscience. He is the author of over 300 papers in scientific journals, with over 45,000 citations. Dr. Wahlestedt is an expert in genomic medicine pertaining to a number of innovative therapeutic modalities and diagnostic approaches.

L. Frank Kolakowski, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Tetracore, Inc. Dr. Kolakowski has a distinguished 30-year scientific research career that includes positions on the faculty of the University of Texas Health Science Center, as an instructor at Harvard Medical School, and as consultant for several U.S. government agencies. As an entrepreneur, Dr. Kolakowski founded and served as CEO of ReceptorBase from 2000-2004, prior to being hired by the prestigious consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton to initiate and manage their life sciences practice. He received his Doctorate in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Towson State University. Tetracore and Dr. Kolakowski are long term partners of SeqLL.

Efrat Shema, Ph.D., Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Shema conducted post-doctoral work under Dr. Bradley Bernstein at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. During her Ph.D. studies at the Weizmann Institute, Dr. Shema has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Adams Fellowship from the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Otto Schwartz Prize for Excellence, and the UNESCO-L’OREAL national award for young women in life sciences. Dr. Shema completed her M.Sc. and Ph.D in molecular cell biology at the Weizmann Institute and earned her B.Sc. in life sciences at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2005. Dr. Shema’s research has focused on using SeqLL’s tSMS platform to decode the cancer epigenome since 2014.

Timothy McCaffrey, Ph.D., Professor of Medicine and Director, Division of Genomic Medicine, George Washington University. Dr. McCaffrey has had a distinguished career in research focused in three major areas: cardiovascular disease, genomics and stem cells. In 2001, he received a prestigious MERIT award from NIH for his work on vascular aging. Dr. McCaffrey is a close collaborator of ours and has used the tSMS platform to identify several panels of RNA transcripts that are highly predictive biomarkers in the fields of cardiovascular disease, infection and inflammation. He co-founded True Bearing Diagnostics to commercialize diagnostics based on those discoveries. He received post-doctoral training at Cornell University Medical College in New York City, his Masters and Doctorate from Purdue University and his B.A. from St. Mary’s University.

About True Single Molecule Sequencing (tSMS) Technology
SeqLL’s collaborators are thoroughly committed to using only our tSMS platform in their scientific research due to its unique RNA and DNA sequencing and related services. Our true single molecule sequencing platform is NGS technology offers maximum flexibility and avoids many of the challenges common for standard NGS approaches. It that enables direct sequencing of millions of individual molecules not requiring PCR amplification at any stage of the process and a simple, economical sample prep protocols. Therefore, it captures a precise sample composition, without bias and loss of diversity and rare species. Our tSMS platform is ideally suited for RNA biomarker discovery and diagnostic assay developments, including challenging applications for the standard NGS platform, such as low quantity, difficult or degraded samples of cell-free DNA, FFPE-isolated nucleic acids, ancient DNA and forensic samples.

About SeqLL, Inc.
SeqLL Inc. (“SeqLL”) is a technology company providing life sciences instrumentation and research services in collaborative partnerships aimed at the development of novel scientific assets and intellectual property across multiple “omics” fields. The Company leverages its expertise with its True Single Molecule Sequencing (“tSMS®”) platform to empower scientists and researchers with improved genetic tools to better understand the molecular mechanisms of disease that is essential to the continued development of new breakthroughs in genomic medicine, and that hopefully address the critical concerns involved with today’s precision medicine. In sum, our experienced team works with our collaborators to develop innovative solutions tailored to the needs of each specific project.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements, including those related to the applicability and viability of the Company’s technology to quantifying RNA molecules from blood and other statements that are predictive in nature. Forward-looking statements are based on the Company’s current expectations and assumptions. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe-harbor for forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking expressions, including, but not limited to, “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “believe,” “estimate,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions and the negatives of those terms. Prospective investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this presentation. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are set forth in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its registration statement on Form S-1, as amended, under the caption “Risk Factors.”

Contacts:

Ashley R. Robinson
LifeSci Advisors, LLC
Tel: +1 (617) 430-7577
Email: arr@lifesciadvisors.com