Paralog Therapeutics

Paralog vulnerability is a biologically well-established concept. A subset of essential genes from lower organism have undergone duplication in mammals. The net result is that an essential function is now shared by two or more genes. The scope of Paralog Therapeutics, Inc. is to exploit paralog vulnerability to devise novel targeted therapies, which would represent a new modality. A subset of cancers will lose expression of one paralog of an essential gene, due to gene alterations, either because the paralog is a tumor suppressor gene or because it is subject to passenger mutations. As a result, the tumor cells now harbor only a single paralog while normal cells retain both paralogs. By virtue of their collective essential function, the residual paralog in cancer cells can be targeted, while the host cells should be resistant to such intervention, because one remaining paralog is sufficient for survival.