Regen BioPharma and NCATS to research the NR2F6 protein

The National Centre for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Regen BioPharma have entered into a formal research collaboration agreement to jointly explore the biology of the NR2F6 protein.

The collaboration will focus on identifying ligands for the nuclear receptor NR2F6 using Regen’s patented screening methodology and the sophisticated expertise and unique chemical libraries of NCATS.

The NR2F6 nuclear receptor has been identified as a potentially important immune cell inhibitor (an immune checkpoint) and cancer stem cell differentiator. The NR2F6 programme at Regen aims to identify agonists and antagonists of NR2F6 in an effort to unleash the cancer-killing potential of a patient’s own immune system.

Commenting on the announcement, Harry Lander, Ph.D., MBA, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Regen Biopharma, said, “Regen is entering into a new phase as it is now both a clinical stage company and one with a promising pipeline of research. One of our goals for 2016 is to rapidly move our small molecule screening programme forward, and collaborating with world experts in this field is part of our strategy. Our collaborator at NCATS, Dr Menghang Xia is a research scientist with vast experience in assay development, compound screening and probe/ligand identification.”

David Koos, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Regen, added, “We have a very defined, strategic implementation plan for 2016 and we have every intention of executing it successfully.This screening programme, which is growing quickly, is an important element to our strategy of developing a novel checkpoint inhibitor.”