Jackson Lab spinoff grabs $2M for cancer treatment research

Courtesy / The Jackson Laboratory Cyteir co-founder and chief scientific officer, Kevin Mills.

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By Staff

Cyteir Therapeutics Inc., a spinoff of the Bar Harbor-based Jackson Laboratory, has been awarded a $2 million, two-year grant from the National Cancer Institute, under the Small Business Technology Transfer Program, to support preclinical development of a new cancer treatment.

As part of the preclinical development, the Cambridge, Mass.-based Cyteir will partner with The Jackson Laboratory for in vivo testing and Eastern Maine Medical Center, which will provide human tissue samples. In vivo testing is done inside living organisms instead of a lab dish.

The drug candidate from Cyteir, which is named for the cell reference "cyt" and the Norse deity of healing "eir," doesn't actually kill cancer cells directly.

Instead, it acts on the genetic program of the cancer cells, causing them essentially to commit suicide. Those cancer cells originate when a genetic pathway instrumental in the immune system goes awry to overactivate the cells, which then drive the leukemia. The technique from Cyteir targets only these cells — not others in the body — so they are killed. That targeted technique reduces side effects, as Cyteir co-founder and chief scientific officer, Kevin Mills told Mainebiz in 2012.

“The continued support of the National Cancer Institute validates the promise of our preclinical program and provides an excellent foundation as we advance our lead candidates to IND-enabling,” Donald Corcoran, president and CEO of Cyteir, said in a release about moving the drug candidate forward to investigational new drug status. “We are eager to work with our collaborating institutions to develop our novel RAD51 modulators for use in cancers.”

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