Amyloidosis, Drug Safety, and a New Therapeutic Hope | Dr. Andy Vick

Drug development is ultimately a balancing act: can a therapy create meaningful benefit without introducing unacceptable risk?

Dr. Andy Vick joins BioTalk Unzipped to discuss systemic amyloidosis, therapeutic antibodies, diagnostics, toxicology, rare disease research, and the transition from CRO life into biotechnology.

Andy explains the biology of systemic amyloidosis and describes Attralus Therapeutics’ approach to developing biologic therapeutics and diagnostics aimed at amyloid disease.

The conversation provides an accessible introduction to toxicology and why safety evaluation is fundamental to drug development. Andy also discusses one of the recurring challenges in rare disease research: finding animal models that adequately represent human disease.

He then reflects on moving from a contract research organization into a smaller biotechnology company and what changes, and what stays remarkably similar, when scientists move between CROs, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech.

New News takes the discussion into cancer immunology with an experimental mRNA-based approach to glioblastoma. The technology packages tumor-specific RNA inside lipid nanoparticles with the goal of generating a strong immune response against the cancer.

It is a conversation that spans fundamental drug safety, rare disease biology, career transitions, and some of the most ambitious approaches being investigated in oncology.

Chapters

02:22 - Dr. Vick’s charity work in Brazil

06:30 - Introduction to Attralus Therapeutics

07:41 - Developing treatments for systemic amyloidosis

10:35 - The role of toxicology in drug discovery and development

16:38 - Using animal models to study amyloidosis

22:06 - The history of Attralus and Dr. Vick’s transition from CRO to biotech

32:45 - New News: Promising results from an mRNA-based brain-cancer vaccine

Connect with Dr. Andy Vick

Dr. Andy Vick

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-vick-4467189/

Attralus Therapeutics

https://www.attralus.com/

Connect with the hosts

Dr. Chad Briscoe

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadbriscoe/

Gregory Austin

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregoryaustin1/

New News

Glioblastoma vaccine turns brain tumors from “cold” to “hot” in humans and dogs:

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/research/glioblastoma-vaccine-turns-brain-tumors-cold-hot-humans-and-dogs

Media credits

Pilot image: https://www.amazon.com/Military-Aircraft-Cockpit-Photograph-Picture/dp/B07Z2KM6KY

University of Florida: https://www.clickorlando.com/news/florida/2024/03/11/university-of-florida-axes-diversity-and-inclusion-office-under-gop-led-law-aimed-at-ridding-similar-programs/

Music: “CLARITY,” Mifune

Music provided by Slip.stream: https://slip.stream

https://get.slip.stream/KFCilm

Keywords

systemic amyloidosis, therapeutic antibodies, toxicology, drug discovery, rare disease, biotechnology, diagnostics, glioblastoma, mRNA vaccine, lipid nanoparticles

#biotechnology #toxicology #glioblastoma #braincancer #amyloidosis #drugdevelopment