Stanford Medicine Catalyst helped the CellBeacon team bring to life a new innovation that boosts the effectiveness of antibody-drug conjugates in cancer patients.
Interview with an innovator: CellBeacon project team
Promising ideas and solutions to transform health care locally and globally are plentiful at Stanford Medicine and just waiting for the right support and resources to take them to the next level. Enter the Stanford Medicine Catalyst program.
The Catalyst program nurtures and supports health care innovations by enabling teams across Stanford Medicine to develop and scale high-potential ideas. Catalyst provides financial and operational support, program management, business and regulatory strategy, mentorship, Stanford pilot and clinical studies, and access to an investor network.
Since its founding in 2020, Catalyst has awarded 23 project teams across three prior cohorts. Interested teams can preview application questions on the Catalyst website to prepare for the current application window that opened on Sept. 6.
One of the projects in Catalyst’s 2024 cohort is the CellBeacon, a new way to boost the effectiveness of antibody-drug conjugates in cancer treatment. Below, CellBeacon’s project leaders Carolyn Bertozzi, PhD, the Baker Family Director of Sarafan ChEM-H, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and professor of chemical and systems biology and of radiology in the School of Medicine, and Muthukumar “Rahm” Ramanathan, MD, PhD, instructor of pathology at Stanford School of Medicine, share how the Catalyst program has helped accelerate their team’s work.
Q: What is the CellBeacon project?
Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are a new way to treat cancer by specifically targeting cancer cells, leading to fewer side effects compared to traditional chemotherapy. In simple terms, ADCs are like "smart bombs" that find cancer cells and deliver a powerful drug to destroy them. Some patients, however, don't respond well to this treatment due to certain challenges like loss of target receptors on cancer cells. Our project introduces a new method to make ADCs work better by adding a "smart receptor" to cancer cells. This receptor acts like a beacon guiding ADCs into the tumor cells, ensuring the drug reaches where it's needed. Our project aims to boost the effectiveness of ADCs to help patients fight cancer more effectively and safely.
Q: What are the benefits of the project?
With CellBeacon, we aim to enable more patients to benefit from and have a durable response to targeted therapies like ADCs. More broadly, engineering smart receptors in cells can be widely applied to areas beyond oncology, to immunology and rare diseases.
Q: What are some of the benefits of working with the Catalyst program?
Catalyst becomes part of your project team and they are there to help you think through all elements of your project as thought partners to bridge the gap between bench and bedside. They understand science doesn't move in a linear line and help you through the journey.
Q: What’s next for your project?
We are currently working on choosing which specific disease to initially target with our platform and then optimizing our lead candidate to improve efficacy, safety, and ready for further testing.In this phase, Catalyst has been instrumental in our progress by providing access to expert mentorship and network of industry professionals. Additionally, Catalyst has been a great source of strategic guidance on regulatory pathways and market positioning to ensure that CellBeacon is on the right track toward successful clinical development.
Is your project the next Catalyst innovation?
The CellBeacon project is just one example of the innovative work being supported by the Catalyst program. The program is helping to accelerate the development of several new health care technologies that have the potential to improve the lives of patients around the world.
Catalyst is seeking health care innovations from all members of the Stanford community (faculty, university and health care staff, and students) that can significantly impact global health care. Catalyst will award select projects with validated science that hold the promise of becoming world-changing solutions and are ready to be implemented through piloting, advanced prototype development, or early-stage utilization.
Take the next steps by:
Reviewing the Catalyst site for additional details and FAQs.
Evaluating whether your project might be a good fit.
Interested teams can preview application questions on the Catalyst site to prepare for the current application window that opened on Sept. 6.
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