{"id":73051,"date":"2017-06-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-graduate-students-launch-pharmaceutical-company\/"},"modified":"2017-06-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T00:00:00","slug":"uri-graduate-students-launch-pharmaceutical-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2017\/06\/uri-graduate-students-launch-pharmaceutical-company\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 graduate students launch pharmaceutical company"},"content":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I., June 6, 2017 \u2014 Three Ph.D. students at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Pharmacy<\/a> have started a company that harnesses big data in a novel approach to drug development.<\/p>\n

Nicholas DaSilva of Providence<\/strong>, Kenneth Rose of South Kingstown<\/strong>, and Benjamin Barlock of Portland, Maine<\/strong>, founded Alcinous Pharmaceuticals late last year. David Worthen, a former College of Pharmacy faculty member and longtime pharmaceuticals consultant, is chief operations officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have always had an entrepreneurial spirit,\u201d said Rose. He and DaSilva had often discussed combining their interest in science with a business venture. Last fall, they sought advice from Frank S. Menniti, a faculty member at the University\u2019s George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience and chief science officer of the pharmaceutical company MindImmune Therapeutics, which is based at 溏心vlog免费B站, before taking the leap.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this is for the love of it, the learning experience,\u201d DaSilva said.<\/p>\n

DaSilva, chief executive officer; Rose, chief scientific officer; and Barlock, chief technology officer, have invested countless hours to the startup, working at home on nights and weekends while pursuing their Ph.D.\u2019s. \u201cWe are grad students by day and executives by night,\u201d DaSilva said.<\/p>\n

Alcinous uses computational software available free on the Internet to sort through 40 million possible drug-binding targets. Calling on their knowledge of chemistry and pharmacology, the students selected five non-traditional protein binding targets for drug action. \u201cWe identified them by conducting extensive literature reviews and using binding-site prediction software,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n

You could say their approach is not a case of man vs. machine, but man and<\/em> machine.<\/p>\n

Alcinous is looking to develop new drug therapies for breast and ovarian cancers caused by the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, targeting a class of oncology drugs known as Poly ADP-Ribose Polymerase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors. These drugs are typically a third line of defense, given their severe side effects. DaSilva and Rose believe that by looking at highly specific and uninvestigated binding targets, Alcinous can develop PARP inhibitor compounds that are safe and highly effective with fewer side effects.<\/p>\n

DaSilva said there is strong precedent for their strategy. Small firms are increasingly handling the first stages of drug development, thanks to improvements in technology that can mine big data without the need for a large staff. These companies can then gain the attention of big pharmaceutical companies, which complete development and get the drug to market.<\/p>\n

However, the timeline and protocol for drug development still require patience and persistence. While still in the pre-clinical research phase, Alcinous is courting private investors to help the company advance to in-depth clinical research in the next year or two.<\/p>\n

Alcinous also is pursuing State of Rhode Island innovation grants and other incentives for biotechnology entrepreneurs. In fact, the resources and expertise found at 溏心vlog免费B站 and across Rhode Island are reasons why the students chose to incorporate Alcinous here, DaSilva said. The company\u2019s name, on the other hand, has roots far from Rhode Island. In Greek mythology, King Alcinous (which means \u201cmighty mind\u201d) helped Odysseus \u2014 hero of Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d \u2014 return home. Rose said he and his partners hope Alcinous will help cancer patients return to health.<\/p>\n

And if success is initially elusive, they hope to \u201cfail fast and fail hard\u201d and keep going. \u201cIf one of these targets doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Rose said of the five compounds they are exploring, \u201cwe have 39 million 995 thousand to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I., June 6, 2017 \u2014 Three Ph.D. students at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s College of Pharmacy have started a company that harnesses big data in a novel approach to drug development. Nicholas DaSilva of Providence, Kenneth Rose of South Kingstown, and Benjamin Barlock of Portland, Maine, founded Alcinous Pharmaceuticals late last year. David […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}