Loki Therapeutics Forms Scientific Advisory Board to Advance Development of "Childhood Vaccination"-Based Cancer Therapeutics

LONG ISLAND CITY, N.Y., June 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Loki Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology company developing next-generation cancer therapeutics that leverage childhood vaccination recall antigens, today announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), and the appointment of several prominent members, including Eileen O'Reilly, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Alan Forsythe, Ph.D., of Forsythe and Bear, LLC, a biostatistical consulting firm; and John McAuliffe, MD, Ph.D., F.A.C.S., and Jennifer Chuy, MD, both of Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Drs. O'Reilly, Forsythe, McAuliffe and Chuy will work closely with Loki's Founder and CEO Chris Bradley and principal scientist Claudia Gravekamp, Ph.D., to advance the development of the company's AWAKE™ platform, a potentially groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment that activates and redirects pre-existing memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to target and eliminate cancer cells.

"We are pleased to announce the launch of our SAB with the expertise of these inaugural members," said CEO Chris Bradley. "The SAB will provide critical guidance to Loki as we advance towards Phase 1 studies designed to confirm the clinical potential of our lead drug candidate derived from our AWAKE technology platform. Our SAB's medical, clinical trial and regulatory expertise will be instrumental in guiding Loki as we develop therapies that harness the power of memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to generate a powerful and immediate immune response to solid tumors and metastases."

Unique among immunotherapy approaches, Loki's AWAKE platform utilizes non-pathogenic microbes (attenuated Listeria monocytogenes) for the precise delivery of childhood vaccine recall antigens to tumor microenvironments and into tumor cells. Loki's lead program – AWAKE-LM-TT – capitalizes on the childhood vaccination for tetanus toxoid (TT) to trigger an immune response to solid tumors presenting the tetanus antigens. 

SAB Members
Eileen O'Reilly, MD
Dr. O'Reilly is Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. O'Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology. She is the Principal Investigator of multiple trials in pancreas cancer and has authored/co-authored more than 275 articles, editorials and book chapters.

Dr. O'Reilly received her medical degree at Trinity College (Dublin University) in Ireland. She completed her residency training in Ireland and fellowship training at MSK. Dr. O'Reilly's research and clinical activities focus primarily on pancreatic and hepatobiliary malignancies, and her research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for the treatment of pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection.

Dr. O'Reilly teaches and mentors junior faculty, oncology fellows, residents and medical/other students and has numerous teaching and other awards. She also chairs several prestigious medical committees.

Alan Forsythe, Ph.D.
Dr. Forsythe has extensive experience in drug development management and statistical consulting.  He has served as Partner and President of Forsythe and Bear, LLC Biostatistical Consulting Firm since 2009 and as a member of the NIH/NCI Interoperability Workgroup in 2006.  He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Dr. Forsythe held roles of increasing responsibility from 1991-2005 at Amgen, Inc., including as Vice President of Corporate Biomedical Information. There, he held direct responsibility for the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Health Economics departments, and was responsible for planning, organizing and monitoring the implementation of new ways to increase profitability by shortening the time to get products to market around the world while improving the quality of the material presented to regulatory bodies for approval. He also had global oversight of long-range development plans for current and emerging Amgen products with respect to biometrics, epidemiology and health economics, and reviewed and approved all protocols for clinical studies, as well as proposed clinical publications and presentations.

Dr. Forsythe also previously served as Senior Vice President at Viratek, Inc., which is part of a $200 million pharmaceutical company, as Regional Director of Scientific Research at Southern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Group, as Adjunct Professor of Biomathematics at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical School and as Adjunct Professor of Preventive Medicine at University of Southern California (USC). He has helped author more than 100 publications.

John McAuliffe, MD, Ph.D., F.A.C.S.
Dr. McAuliffe is Associate Program Director General Surgery Residency, Attending Surgeon and Assistant Professor at Montefiore Medical Center and Site Director at Montefiore's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Since joining the Montefiore team in 2016, his clinical focus has been on endocrine, neuroendocrine, and pancreaticobiliary benign and malignant diseases.

Dr. McAuliffe's research focuses on tumor biology, dissemination, and therapeutics in pancreatic adenocarcinoma via tumor-associated macrophages. He is the principal investigator on research projects focusing on surgical education quality improvement. His work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and books and has been presented nationally. He is board certified in general surgery and complex general surgery oncology and is a member of numerous professional societies.

Dr. McAuliffe received his Ph.D. at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston and his MD from the McGovern Medical School in Houston. Dr. McAuliffe began his postgraduate training with a year-long fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, after which he trained at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital. While there, he completed an internship and residency in General Surgery, becoming Administrative Chief Resident in his final year. He then completed a fellowship in Complex General Surgical Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Jennifer Chuy, MD
Dr. Chuy is an Attending Physician in hematology and oncology at Montefiore Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a part of the division of gastrointestinal oncology and works closely with the multidisciplinary pancreatobiliary team.  She has worked closely with scientists at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine on translational studies in pancreatic cancer funded by PANCAN.  She is actively involved in the education of the medical oncology fellows.

She is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology, and completed an internal medicine residency and a hematology/oncology fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine after earning her medical degree at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

About Loki Therapeutics
Loki Therapeutics is an immuno oncology company that is developing a new generation of cancer therapeutics that efficiently deliver childhood recall antigens to tumor cells with genetically attenuated bacterial vectors. Loki's AWAKE™ technology platform offers a potentially groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment by activating and redirecting pre-existing memory T cells created during childhood vaccination to target and eliminate cancer cells.  Key to AWAKE is its utilization of attenuated Listeria Monocytogenes for the precise delivery of recall antigens to tumor environments and into the tumor cell.  Loki's lead development program – AWAKE-LM-TT – capitalizes on the childhood vaccination for tetanus toxoid (TT) to generate an immune response to solid tumors and metastases presenting the tetanus antigens.  Loki is currently advancing AWAKE-LM-TT as a potential treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer, as well as metastatic ovarian cancer.  Loki is also pursuing additional development programs based on other childhood vaccines, including polio (AWAKE-LM-PV) and mumps.  For more information on Loki Therapeutics please visit www.lokitx.com.

Contacts
Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc.
Miriam Miller (Investors)
[email protected]
212-375-2694

Ingrid Mezo (Media)
[email protected]
646-604-5150

SOURCE Loki Therapeutics