Rubedo Life Sciences Announces Expansion of Scientific Advisory Board

– Newly Appointed Members Include Judith Campisi, Ph.D., Mario Lacouture, M.D. and Francesca Grisoni, Ph.D.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Rubedo Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing first-in-class therapies for chronic age-related diseases targeting senescent cells that drive cellular aging, today announced the appointments of Judith Campisi, Ph.D., Francesca Grisoni, Ph.D., and Mario Lacouture, M.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB comprises experts in aging biology, AI, dermatology, drug discovery and development.

“We are pleased to welcome Profs. Campisi, Lacouture and Grisoni, renowned experts in senescence, age-related diseases and AI drug discovery to Rubedo’s Scientific Advisory Board,” said Marco Quarta, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Rubedo Life Sciences. “This depth of scientific expertise will be critical in advancing our pipeline of novel first-in-class small molecules that will target key drivers of progression in pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, and fibrotic diseases in the aging population.

The new members of Rubedo’s SAB include:

Judith (Judy) Campisi, Ph.D. is a Professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. She received a PhD in biochemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and completed her postdoctoral training in cell cycle regulation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. As an assistant and associate professor at the Boston University Medical School, she studied the role of cellular senescence in suppressing cancer and became convinced of the contribution of senescent cells in the process of cellular aging. She joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a senior scientist in 1991 and in 2002, she started a second laboratory at the Buck Institute. At both institutions, Dr. Campisi established a broad program to explore the relationship between aging and age-related disease, with an emphasis on the interface between cancer and aging. Dr. Campisi is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Campisi currently serves on advisory committees for the Alliance for Aging Research, Progeria Research Foundation, and NIA’s Intervention Testing Program. She is also an editorial board member for more than a dozen peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Campisi is a scientific founder of Unity Biotechnology, a California-based company focused on developing therapies for age-related pathologies.

Mario E. Lacouture, M.D. 

Dr. Lacouture is a Professor and the Director of the Oncodermatology Program in the Dermatology Service, Department of Medicine, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He conducted his postdoctoral work at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA, an internship in General Surgery at Cleveland Clinic and residency in dermatology at The University of Chicago, IL. He received his M.D. degree from Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia, where he grew up. Dr Lacouture began his career in Oncodermatology at The University of Chicago. During his first faculty appointment at Northwestern University, Dr Lacouture received a Zell Scholarship and a Career Development Award from the Dermatology Foundation, and established the first clinical program focused on dermatologic care in cancer patients and survivors. During this time, he initiated the first clinical trials in Oncodermatology, and described mechanisms and treatments on adverse events to novel cancer therapies, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Nature Reviews Cancer. Dr Lacouture founded the Skin Toxicity and the Oncodermatology Study Groups of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, is on the Guidelines Advisory Committee of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and the Editorial Board of Cancer.Net. In 2012, CancerCare named Dr Lacouture as Physician of the Year for his contributions to the education of people living with cancer, and he has been selected as a Top Doctor in America and New York by Castle Connolly and New York Magazine since 2014. Dr Lacouture has published over 280 articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of Dr Lacouture’s Skin Care Guide for People Living With Cancer and Editor of the textbook Dermatologic Principles and Practice in Oncology. Dr Lacouture is the PI for numerous clinical trials aimed towards the treatment and understanding of adverse events to cancer therapies.

Francesca Grisoni, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (Dept. Biomedical Engineering and Institute for Complex Molecular Systems), where she leads the Molecular Machine Learning team. Her research interests lie at the interface between machine learning and medicinal chemistry, aiming to develop novel computational tools to augment human intelligence in drug discovery. Francesca received her Ph.D. from the University of Milano-Bicocca and worked as a data scientist and biostatistical consultant, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the ETH Zurich. Her work includes data-driven and AI-powered approaches for molecular property prediction, scaffold hopping, and de novo molecular design.

The new advisors will join existing SAB members, Cory Hogaboam, Ph.D., Paul Insel, M.D., Lidia Schapira, M.D., and Mark Pegram, M.D.

About Rubedo Life Sciences

Rubedo Life Sciences is a biopharmaceutical company developing a broad portfolio of innovative therapies engineered to target cells which drive chronic age-related diseases. Our proprietary ALEMBIC™ drug discovery platform has engineered novel first-in-class small molecules designed to selectively target senescent cells, which play a key role in the progression of pulmonary, dermatological, oncological, neurodegenerative, fibrotic and other chronic disorders. The Rubedo leadership team is composed of industry leaders and early pioneers in chemistry, technology, and life sciences, with expertise in drug development and commercialization from both large pharma and leading biotech companies. The company is based in Sunnyvale, CA. For additional information, visit www.rubedolife.com.

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