Vedanta Biosciences' Silvia Caballero, Ph.D., Named to TIME 100 NEXT List for Innovative Leaders
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 13, 2019 – Vedanta Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new category of therapies for immune-mediated diseases based on defined bacterial consortia, today announced that Silvia Caballero, Ph.D., who leads Vedanta's program on multidrug-resistant organisms (MDRO), has been named to the TIME 100 NEXT list. The list honors individuals who are shaping the future of their fields and defining the next generation of leadership.
"Silvia is a rising star in the microbiome field and exemplifies the spirit of this award. She seized onto the crucial public health challenge of multidrug resistance as a doctoral student and contributed scientific insights that have shaped our understanding of the role of intestinal microbiota in resisting colonization by gut pathogens," said Bernat Olle, Ph.D., co-founder and chief executive officer of Vedanta Biosciences. "She then continued to drive forward research in the field by leading a discovery team at Vedanta towards the identification of a drug candidate that could potentially prevent MDRO infections, which could have enormous potential to benefit patients around the world. We're so proud that Silvia has been recognized with this honor."
Dr. Caballero leads Vedanta's MDRO decolonization program, which focuses on designing bacterial consortia to prevent infections with MDROs and other gut pathogens by eliminating them from the intestine, which is frequently colonized prior to infection. MDROs are responsible for hundreds of thousands of infections in high-risk patients in the United States and Europe each year. Vedanta's preclinical human microbiome-derived discovery program represents a novel strategy that could potentially benefit patients at high risk for infection as well as potentially aid in reducing the use of antibiotics and the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Dr. Caballero earned her undergraduate degree in biological sciences from Hunter College and doctorate degree from Weill Cornell Medical College in microbiology and immunology, where she developed microbiome-based tools to identify gut bacteria responsible for fighting off MDROs. In 2018, Dr. Caballero was named to the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Latin America list. In 2019, she was named to MIT Technology Review's Global Innovators Under 35 list.
About Vedanta Biosciences
Vedanta Biosciences is a clinical-stage microbiome leader developing a new category of therapies for immune-mediated diseases based on rationally-defined consortia of human microbiome-derived non-pathogenic bacteria. Vedanta's proprietary capabilities include what is believed to be the largest collection of human-gut associated bacteria, assays and bioinformatics techniques for consortia design and optimization, vast datasets from human interventional studies and facilities for cGMP-compliant manufacturing of rationally-defined bacterial consortia in powder form.
Vedanta Biosciences' pioneering work, in collaboration with its scientific co-founders, has led to the identification of human commensal bacteria that induce a range of immune responses – including induction of regulatory T cells, CD8+ T cells, and Th17 cells, among others. These advances have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals, including Science (multiple), Nature (2013, 2019), Cell, and Nature Immunology. Vedanta Biosciences has harnessed these biological insights and its capabilities to generate a pipeline of investigational live biotherapeutic products (LBPs) in infectious disease, autoimmune disease, allergy, and immuno-oncology. This pipeline includes three clinical-stage product candidates currently being evaluated for the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infection and inflammatory bowel disease (in collaboration with Janssen Biotech, Inc.), and food allergy, as well as a fourth product candidate expected to enter the clinic in 2019 in patients with advanced or metastatic cancers (in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb's checkpoint inhibitor OPDIVO®).
Vedanta's IP portfolio contains over 30 issued patents with coverage through at least 2031. Vedanta Biosciences was founded by PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC). Its scientific co-founders are world-renowned experts in immunology and microbiology who have pioneered the fields of innate immunity, Th17 and regulatory T cell biology.
This press release contains statements that are or may be forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to the company's future prospects, developments, and strategies. The forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance and achievements to differ materially from current expectations, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties described in the risk factors included in the regulatory filings for PureTech Health plc. These forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding the present and future business strategies of the company and the environment in which it will operate in the future. Each forward-looking statement speaks only as at the date of this press release. Except as required by law and regulatory requirements, neither the company nor any other party intends to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Allison Mead Talbot
amt@puretechhealth.com
Tom Donovan
tom@tenbridgecommunications.com