Life Edit, an ElevateBio portfolio company, to collaborate with expert scientific advisors to maximize potential of genome-editing platform including novel RNA-guided nucleases and base editors
Life Edit Therapeutics Inc., an ElevateBio portfolio company focused on next-generation genome-editing, today announced initial members of its newly-formed Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). They include SAB chair, Vic Myer, Ph.D., President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Chroma Medicine; Ben Kleinstiver, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Assistant Investigator, Massachusetts General Hospital; and Rahul M. Kohli, MD, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry and Biophysics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. The SAB will work with Life Edit’s leadership to advance the company’s innovative genome editing platform and the development of a portfolio of therapies to treat genetic diseases.
“Genome editing technologies have revolutionized the way cell and gene therapies and regenerative medicines are discovered and developed by allowing genetic material to be removed, added, or altered at specific locations in the genome, but enzymes that offer broader coverage are needed for creating novel cell and gene therapies,” said Mitchell Finer, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Life Edit Therapeutics. “As we continue to build our pipeline of novel gene-editing tools and further strengthen our gene-editing expertise, we are honored to have the opportunity to work alongside this highly-esteemed Scientific Advisory Board with specialized gene-editing leadership.”
“With one of the world’s largest and most diverse arrays of novel RNA-guided nucleases and base editors, Life Edit has the potential to develop therapeutics targeting any genomic sequence of interest, ultimately tackling challenging diseases where a change to the underlying sequence of the genome is expected to have a benefit for patients,” said Dr. Vic Myer, Chair of Life Edit Therapeutics SAB. “We look forward to working with the company to develop new cell and gene therapies to address genetically defined diseases that have significant unmet needs.”
Life Edit’s scientific advisors include:
- Vic Myer, Ph.D., is President and Chief Scientific Officer at Chroma Medicine and an Advisor at Atlas Venture and has more than 20 years of experience in the biotech industry. He serves as an Independent Board member at KromaTid, Inc, an advisor to the NIH Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium, and a SAB member of Obsidian Therapeutics. Previously, he was Chief Technology Officer of Editas Medicine, where he led the genome editing platform, CMC, and chemistry departments.
- Ben Kleinstiver, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. His laboratory develops and applies protein engineering methods to improve genome editing technologies. The research in his laboratory aims to address the limitations of existing technologies and develop new capabilities that will help solve important research questions in the genome-editing field to provide safe and effective treatments for patients.
- Rahul M. Kohli, MD, Ph.D., is anAssociate Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry and Biophysics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His research group’s chief objective has been to probe DNA modifying enzymes using approaches rooted in enzymology and chemical biology. The enzymes studied by Dr. Kohli’s group catalyze the purposeful introduction of mutations or epigenetic modifications of nucleobases and have been harnessed for targeted genome editing. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigators and was the 2020 recipient of the American Chemical Society Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry.
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