Guardian Bio
Dendritic cell-based platform for cancer therapy
Your immune system is your body’s best weapon and defense against cancer. It is only when it is overcome that cancer develops into full blown disease. Dendritic cells sit at the helm of the immune system, directing and dictating immune responses. Data has shown dendritic cells are often dysfunctional in cancer patients, and that this dysfunction is a bottleneck for other therapies. Guardian Bio’s approach is focused on creating a dendritic cell-based product which drives anti-tumor activity through activating the killers of the immune system AND training them against multiple cancer targets. We take stem cells from cancer patients, turn them into specific therapeutic dendritic cells specially trained against that patient’s tumor, and re-introduce them back into the body. Our therapeutic dendritic cells revitalize the killers of the immune system and give them the kickstart they need to fight - and win - against cancer.
Active Founders
Ananya Zutshi, Founder
Ananya is Co-Founder and CEO of Guardian Bio, a company which controls immunity using dendritic cell-based therapies. She has a Bachelors in Science in Engineering from Duke and Masters in Engineering and MBA from Harvard. Her experiences span across the pharma/biotech industry in operations, engineering, project management, and early stage investing. She is passionate about delivering better therapies for patients and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Ricky Barrett, Founder
Co-founder and CSO at Guardian Bio. Ricky started his career as a marine biologist and research diver at FAU with a focus on marine natural products and drug discovery. He pursued a PhD at UCF, focused on immunology followed by a postdoc in cancer immunology and tumor microenvironment at the University of Pennsylvania. Ricky is a prolific science communicator creating educational science content for an audience of over a quarter million followers across various social media platforms.
Company Launches
tl;dr
Your immune system keeps you healthy. If it loses control, diseases like cancer, chronic infections, and autoimmunity can develop. We created a platform that enables us to produce a master regulator of the immune system (the dendritic cell) from patient stem cells. We program these cells so that they can make corrections to dysfunctional immune systems and bring disease back under control. We’re starting with cancer.
Team
Prior to starting Guardian Bio, Ananya…
- Was a Blavatnik Fellow at Harvard Business School, a fellowship fostering life science entrepreneurship
- Worked across Operations, Engineering, and Project Management in the manufacturing and development side of the pharma/biotech industry
- Received dual Masters in Engineering Sciences and MBA from Havard, where she was a Kaplan Fellow, and graduated with honors from Duke with a degree in Biomedical Engineering
Prior to starting Guardian Bio, Ricky…
- Was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Pennsylvania - tumor microenvironment, tumor immunity, and cell therapy
- Co-Founded the Philadelphia chapter of Nucleate, a free and collaborative trainee-led organization that facilitates the formation of pioneering life sciences companies
- Earned a PhD in Biomedical Sciences - Immunology at University of Central Florida
- Worked as a marine biologist and scientific diver at Florida Atlantic University
- And continues to create science communication content for social media platforms, reaching an audience of over a quarter million followers across TikTok and Instagram
The Problem
The overall problem is that the immune system unfortunately can’t always maintain control over disease. Cancer specifically actively suppresses the immune system. It has to. If the immune system maintains control, it will kill the cancer and disease will not develop.
One of the immune cell types often suppressed by cancer are dendritic cells, which sit at the helm of the immune system. Dendritic cells (DCs) direct and dictate immune responses. DCs are often deficient or dysfunctional in cancer patients, creating severe limitations in the body’s ability to fight off cancer, even when treatments like chemo and immunotherapy are applied.
The Solution
We take stem cells from cancer patients, turn them into dendritic cells, program them against that patient’s tumor, and re-introduce them back into the body. This stimulates a diverse yet targeted and robust immune response against the cancer.
The Platform
Our dendritic cell-based platform can be adapted to a variety of diseases. When we train DCs against different targets, our therapy can reignite immune responses against chronic infectious diseases or suppress immune cells triggering autoimmunity.
Our dendritic cell-based therapy is synergistic with many other immunotherapies including checkpoint inhibitors, peptide and mRNA-based cancer vaccines, oncolytic viruses, etc, potentially extending the reach of these therapies to patients who would not have responded before.
