From: sheriffcoltrane23x@gmail.com   
      
   Biotech start-up aims to unlock potential of the gut-brain axis   
      
      
    "The gut is the organ for modulating satiety and metabolism," says CEO Nancy   
   Thornberry. Image: iStockPhoto   
   By Stephen DANIELLS 14-Dec-2015    
   Last updated on 14-Dec-2015 at 16:06 GMT   
      
   Kallyope Inc. is aiming to harness the potential of the gut-brain axis to   
   develop consumer products and transformational therapeutics that improve human   
   health and nutrition.   
      
   The biotech company announced $44 million of Series A financing last week, and   
   boasts numerous members of the national academies, two Lasker Award winners,   
   and three Nobel laureates among its founders and scientific advisory board.   
      
   "The gut-brain axis functions as a two-way information highway between the gut   
   and the brain, providing an unprecedented opportunity to access and influence   
   brain centers involved in a variety of fundamental human processes," said Dr   
   Tom Maniatis, co-   
   founder of Kallyope and a professor at Columbia University College of   
   Physicians and Surgeons.   
      
   "Kallyope has put together an exciting, state-of-the-art program to understand   
   how the gut communicates with other organs and our brains about our   
   physiological, metabolic and internal state."   
      
   'Not a microbiome company'   
      
   Nancy Thornberry, CEO of Kallyope, told us: "We're not a microbiome company.   
   The platform we're building will be optimally suited to understand what is   
   happening at a mechanistic or molecular level."   
      
   Kallyope will leverage cutting-edge technologies including sequencing,   
   genetics, circuit mapping, neural imaging and bioinformatics. By integrating   
   and applying complementary tools and approaches to the understanding of   
   gut-brain biology, the company    
   aims to develop transformational therapeutics and consumer products that   
   improve human health and nutrition.   
      
   The company will not be working directly with probiotics or prebiotics, said   
   Thornberry, but the focus is on proteins and compounds that modulate signaling.   
      
   "Thereapeutics are an obvious approach with metabolic disorders like obesity,"   
   she said. "The gut is the organ for modulating satiety and metabolism."   
      
   The interest in satiety and weight management is an obvious place for the   
   company to focus initially because satiety pathways and the hormones are   
   well-established, said Thornberry, a 30 year veteran of the pharmaceutical   
   industry, with over three    
   decades in research at Merck.   
      
   "We are also very intrigued by the broader role of the microbiome in   
   neurological health, like cognition, anxiety and depression."   
      
   Expertise   
      
   Kallyope's Scientific Advisory Board Members:   
      
   Michael Brown, MD, Nobel laureate   
   Joseph Goldstein, MD, Nobel laureate   
   Richard Scheller, PhD, Lasker Award   
      
   Kallyope's Board Members:   
      
   Josh Wolfe, Lux Capital   
   Terry McGuire, Polaris Partners   
   Tim Kutzkey, PhD, The Column Group   
   Nancy Thornberry, CEO   
   Tom Maniatis, PhD   
      
   The new company was founded by Charles Zuker, PhD, Tom Maniatis, PhD, and   
   Richard Axel, MD and is headquartered at the Alexandria Center for Life   
   Science in New York City.   
      
   Kallyope is currently eight people and Thornberry expects this to triple in   
   2016, and then grow beyond that. The company has already drawn scientific and   
   analytic talent from institutions like Columbia, Google and Bloomberg.   
      
   "We are enormously excited to be developing new ways of influencing gut-brain   
   circuits to improve human health," said Thornberry. "Kallyope's    
   ross-disciplinary approach and technology platform have the potential to   
   translate gut-brain biology into a    
   range of new therapeutic and nutritional programs. Such an approach would not   
   have been possible just a few years ago."   
      
   Investors   
      
   Kallyope's founding investors include Lux Capital, Polaris Partners and The   
   Column Group. Other notable investors include Illumina, Inc., Tony Evnin,   
   Ph.D. and Alexandria Venture Investments.   
      
   "What Kallyope is doing represents a hugely exciting venture into the untapped   
   therapeutic and nutritional potential of the gut-brain axis, which no other   
   biotech has unlocked and translated. We believe that Kallyope is pioneering an   
   area of science that    
   will fundamentally change how drugs and nutritional products are made,   
   targeted, and administered," said Josh Wolfe, Kallyope board member and   
   managing partner of Lux Capital.   
      
       
      
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