Retrotope, a developer of deuterated PUFA drugs against diseases of degeneration, has created a new category of drug platform, deuterium stabilized PUFAs, to preserve and restore mitochondrial health in degenerative diseases. The unique mechanism of Retrotope’s platform prevents cellular damage and recovers cellular function damaged by lipid peroxidation due to oxidative stress. Retrotope’s first product candidate, RT001, is being clinically tested in Friedreich’s ataxia (FA), an untreated fatal orphan disease.
Dr. Robert J. Molinari was the founding CEO of CODA Genomics, a synthetic biology and biofuels company. Dr. Molinari is on the biotech screening committee of the Life Science Angels. He served as a genomics affiliate to the Institute for the Future, a Menlo Park-based think tank. He was the co-founding CEO and president of Protogene Laboratories, Inc., and from 1994 to 1996 led that company to become the world's largest supplier of custom DNA before it was acquired by Life Technologies, Inc. (now Invitrogen). He then ran a spin-off of Protogene for several years which developed ink jet technology for custom DNA chips. Prior to Protogene, Dr. Molinari served as a strategic advisor in the startup of Nanogen, Affymetrix, and Sequenom. Earlier, Dr. Molinari served as the founding CEO of Avitech Diagnostics, a company with DNA sequencing and mutation detection technology (which became part of Variagenics, Inc.) and was a consultant specializing in biotechnology at McKinsey & Co. Dr. Molinari has an A.B. and an MBA from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Brown University. Contacts: Vadim Shmanai +375 17 292 03 73, shmanai@ifoch.bas-net.by
More information about the seminar can be found here.