Key opinion leaders in the fields of Extracellular Vesicles (EVs), liquid biopsy and liver disease support Mursla Bio’s ambition to bring its integrated platform for the discovery and profiling of EV phenotypes in diseases to the clinic
Cambridge, UK, 17 November 2021: Mursla Bio, a novel multi-omics Extracellular Vesicle (EV) characterisation company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Bernd Giebel, Dr Daniel Delubac and Professor Pierre-Emmanuel Rautou to its Advisory Board.
Professor Bernd Giebel (PhD) is Professor at the University Duisburg-Essen. Highly experienced in the phenotypic characterisation of rare cells, (hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells), Bernd introduced Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) to the scientific community as a quantification and size-measuring method for extracellular vesicles (EV) in 2011. In the same year he was also involved in the world’s first human stem-cell derived EV administration. In addition, his group also established imaging flow cytometry (IFCM) for single EV characterisation, in complex samples. To date, Bernd has over 100 publications, the majority focused on EVs. Bernd is an active member of the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV), having coordinated several ISEV’s positioning papers on the therapeutic application of EVs. He is the co-chair of the EV committee of the International Society of Cell and Gene Therapy (ISCT) and the president of the German Society of Extracellular Vesicles (GSEV), which he founded together with other German EV experts in 2017. In 2021, Bernd founded Exosla, an EV therapeutics company. He used to sit on the scientific advisory board of EVOX Therapeutics.
Professor Giebel commented: “Mursla Bio’s novel, very sensitive platform addresses key challenges in the EV field. It allows purification of specific EV sub-populations and their subsequent comprehensive characterisation. The integrated deep discovery and high sensitivity platform allows EV characterisation at the highest level and will facilitate the translation of EVs into the clinical setting.”
Dr Daniel Delubac (PhD) is COO at Xilis. A seasoned leader, manager and engineer specialised in biotechnology with experience spanning clinical diagnostics research, product development and lab operations, as well as synthetic biology, Daniel has significant experience working with liquid biopsy companies. Having started his career at Counsyl, where he built the first fully automated, blood-to-data, robotic system for clinical-grade Next Generation Sequencing, he then joined liquid biopsy company Guardant Health, where he supervised both process engineering at the company level and automation for sample processing. Subsequently, at Freenome, another liquid biopsy biotech, he led execution on wet lab R&D, process engineering, automation, laboratory operations and supply chain, building next generation products for the unbiased discovery of cancer biomarkers using robotics and AI.
Dr Delubac added: “The liquid biopsy space has made tremendous progress over the last few years thanks to the advancement of circulating free DNA assays. Mursla’s EV approach offers an innovative and fresh take on finding and identifying alternative, yet extremely valuable, multi-omics tumor information in the bloodstream.”
Professor Pierre-Emmanuel Rautou (MD, PhD) is a clinical specialist in Hepatology with a PhD in vascular biology. He also has a particular interest in EVs and having undertaken research in this area has published a number of original and review papers on the subject. Currently Professor of Hepatology at the University of Paris and Hôpital Beaujon, Clichy, France (since 2016) and head of the splanchnic hemodynamic laboratory at Beaujon Hospital, Clichy, France (since 2012), Pierre-Emmanuel is also leading an Inserm team dedicated to the study of the role of vessels in liver diseases, at the Paris Research Center for Inflammation. His research is focused on the role of vessels in liver diseases. Specifically, he is interested in primary vascular liver diseases (Budd-Chiari syndrome, portal vein thrombosis and intrahepatic non cirrhotic portal hypertension), as well as in vascular involvement in common liver diseases development and complications.
Prof Rautou stated: “Mursla Bio’s blood test could facilitate earlier diagnosis of diseases such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) – a major global health problem with an 87% mortality rate after five years. Current diagnostics, like ultrasound, are not accurate enough. There are around eight million patients at risk of HCC across the US and Europe for whom earlier diagnosis could significantly increase their chance of a cure. Mursla Bio’s approach, focused on liver-derived EV sub-populations as a starting point, is very interesting – especially given the ability to identify new markers that were hardly visible before, whilst having an assay that can be built using a similar workflow.”
Pierre Arsène, Founder and CEO, Mursla Bio commented of the appointments: “Professors Giebel, Rautou and Dr Delubac are significant opinion leaders in their fields; we feel privileged to have them on board and look forward to benefitting from their expertise and experience. Ultimately, I hope that their input will bring us one step closer to our objective of getting Mursla Bio’s novel EV-based lab test into the clinic.”
-ENDS-
Contact: Mursla Bio
Sarah Brereton, Director, Limewash
Tel: 07796 583 223
Email: sarah@limewash.co.uk
About Mursla Bio
Mursla Bio is a breakthrough Extracellular Vesicle (EV) characterisation company based on a novel proprietary technology platform, ExoPheno™, which detects the multi-omics cargo of tissue-specific EVs in blood for various biomedical applications. Extracellular Vesicles have been shown to reflect the state of their cellular sources, transporting specific ‘-omics’ information (DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids and metabolites) either locally or to distant sites via the circulatory system, including blood.
Discover more: https://www.mursla.com
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