Nexpep’s therapeutic ‘vaccine’ Nexvax2, currently in Phase I first-in-human clinical trials in Melbourne, has the potential to provide a practical and safe treatment allowing a normal unrestricted diet for people with coeliac disease. The realisation of this first-in-class vision received a boost recently with the announcement that Dr Bana Jabri MD PhD of the University of Chicago would be collaborating on the research and development pathway of Nexpep.
“It is with great enthusiasm that I join forces with the Nexpep team to develop a therapeutic approach that has the realistic potential of offering a safe treatment that may liberate patients from the gluten free diet”, she said.
Having first trained as a paediatric gastroenterologist and then as a research immunologist at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, of particular note was Dr Jabri’s comment “I believe that this approach may also lead to a preventive treatment for children at high risk of developing coeliac disease”.
In welcoming Dr Jabri to the team, its leader, clinician scientist Dr Bob Anderson, Head, Coeliac Disease Laboratory, Autoimmunity and Transplantation Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Melbourne, stated that “With Bana’s appointment as Senior Scientific Advisor, Nexpep is now in the unique position of having two complimentary research programmes that bring optimal chances for therapeutic success”.
Dr Anderson was referring to the potential synergies from bringing together his team’s focus on discovery of peptides critical to gluten toxicity and Dr Jabri’s program focussed on inflammation-induced tissue damage.
After attending a number of meetings with the Company’s researchers, its management team and the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board, Dr Jabri stated “Over the last week I have been impressed by the competence and energy of the Nexpep development team. I look forward to working with the team leading up to the critical Phase 2 “proof of principle” clinical trials and beyond”.
Dr Jabri’s research is based on her role as an Associate Professor in the departments of Medicine, Pathology and Pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She is also a member of the Committee on Immunology and is co-Director of the University of Chicago Digestive Disease Research Core Center.
Dr Jabri was recently announced as the winner of the prestigious 2009 Warren Prize for Excellence in Basic Research, awarded by the Wm. K. Warren Foundation and the Wm. K. Warren Medical Research Center for Celiac Disease at the University of California, San Diego.