Shuomo Bhattacharya is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine in the RDM Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford. Following numerous other academic decorations, he was awarded a BHF Chair in 2009 which he has held since.

His primary role in this function has been the development of novel therapeutics and targets, with a major focus of his lab being the development of anti-inflammatory peptide therapeutics –so-called evasins – isolated from tick saliva that may have applications to myocarditis, post-myocardial infarction injury and myocardial fibrosis*.

In recent years, Shoumo successfully developed a platform to identify and characterize the chemokine –binding and –neutralizing properties of genetically engineered evasins and their utility for therapeutic intervention.

As soon as having learned about the LAB282 Award scheme, Shoumo was one of the first Oxford researchers to discuss with the LAB282 EIR and Evotec scientists and to apply foHr an Award. Since then, the project has come a long way: As part of the LAB282 Award, evasin candidate molecules were expressed at an industry scale and quality. Subsequently, they were characterized for in vitro potency and in vivo for PK and pharmacodynamics effects. Experiments in long-term animal disease models for cardiac inflammation are currently in progress.

“Today, there are hardly any treatment options for patients with myocarditis, post-myocardial infarction injury or myocardial fibrosis. It is my sincere hope and ambition to make a difference for these patients by developing novel evasin-based drugs which are efficacious and safe.”

* KEY RECENT PUBLICATIONS
The N-terminal domain of a tick evasin is critical for chemokine binding and neutralization and confers specific binding activity to other evasins. Eaton JRO, Alenazi Y, Singh K, Davies G, Geis-Asteggiante L, Kessler B, Robinson CV, Kawamura A, Bhattacharya S.. J Biol Chem. 2018 Apr 20;293(16):6134-6146. doi: 10.1074/jbc.RA117.000487. Epub 2018 Feb 27. – Yeast surface display identifies a family of evasins from ticks with novel polyvalent CC chemokine-binding activities. Singh K, Davies G, Alenazi Y, Eaton JRO, Kawamura A, Bhattacharya S.. Sci Rep. 2017 Jun 27;7(1):4267. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-04378-1.