QUANTRO Therapeutics and IMP enter into research collaboration to accelerate transcriptomic drug discovery
QUANTRO Therapeutics (QUANTRO), a pioneer in the discovery of first-in-class transcription factor targeting cancer treatments, announced that the company is entering into a strategic research collaboration with the group of Dr. Johannes Zuber, a world-leading expert in functional genetics and one of the co-founders of QUANTRO, at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria. The goal of the collaboration is to investigate the molecular functions of transcription factor complexes that have emerged as promising targets for the development of cancer therapies.
Cancer cells depend on specific transcription factors – proteins that regulate gene expression – to maintain their abnormal behavior. While transcription factors have long been considered “undruggable”, new molecules have been found that trigger their degradation or disrupt interactions with essential co-factors. These advances have led to major breakthroughs in the treatment of some cancer types. However, existing drugs targeting transcription have often been found only through serendipity, while their systematic discovery and development have been hampered by a lack of scalable methods to directly measure transcriptional activity. The new collaboration focuses on expanding QUANTRO’s transcriptomic discovery approach by integrating genetic screening technologies to gain a deeper understanding of how transcription factors interact with co-factors and other regulatory proteins. The Zuber lab at the IMP has developed advanced genetic screening and validation assays to identify and characterize such key co-factors and regulators, thereby complementing QUANTRO’s activities building an innovative proprietary transcription factor targeting R&D pipeline.
Dr. Johannes Zuber, Group Leader at the IMP, commented: “A detailed understanding of protein binding partners is essential for developing new drugs and refining existing hits. While finding compounds that bind to transcription factors is relatively straightforward, it is often unclear whether this binding event interferes with co-factor interactions or other critical protein functions. QUANTRO’s time-resolved transcriptomics technology can answer this question with unprecedented precision, and our genetic screens can pinpoint the relevant co-factors.”
Dr. Michael Bauer, CEO of QUANTRO, added: “Our transcriptomic discovery platform addresses one of drug discovery’s greatest challenges - making previously ‘undruggable’ targets accessible. With our proprietary technology, we can instantly detect transcriptional changes with high precision, enabling us to focus on direct and immediate transcriptional responses. This partnership will further strengthen our capabilities and understanding of the biology of the targets we are working on by integrating the IMP’s exceptional research expertise and by providing access to complementary know-how and resources. Together, we aim to accelerate drug discovery for currently untreatable diseases.”
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