VDP-15 Rubedo.Life Assessment

NOTE: This is a duplicate of an on chain proposal from prior to VitaDAO's using snapshot, and is present here for completeness on snapshot. No snapshot vote occurred.

Summary

The VitaDAO Longevity Working Group has been evaluating the Rubedo Life Science Inc company under NDA after multiple discussions over 3 months.

Scientific reviews digest: The review team included 5 PhDs (3 of which are professor / PI level) and 2 PhD-candidates. All have expressed a vote in agreement. To quantify the level of conviction, some have provided a score on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the most excited), the average score was 3.8.

Here we are presenting an overview of the science and business in front of the VITA community. You, the token holders, decide the ultimate VitaDAO assessment outcome via a Yes / No vote to signal agreement or disagreement with the Longevity WG assessment.

Proposal Details

Team formed by an exceptional mix of veteran drug hunters from Pharma and Biotech, Silicon Valley tech leaders, and world-class longevity scientists (from Stanford, etc). The unique discovery platform Alembic combines unparalleled computational biology and proprietary chemistry technologies. Raised $12M Seed round led by Khosla Ventures. All Intellectual Property (IP) is fully owned by Rubedo. Multiple patents filed. First patent has been issued and granted this year. Rubedo developed a portfolio of lead compounds for a pipeline of multiple indications of age-related diseases. Partnership with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been established to advance the first program on lung fibrosis and interstitial lung diseases. The company attracted the interest of several major Pharma Companies for strategic partnerships.

Team

Marco Quarta: Serial Entrepreneur in the Longevity therapeutics space and former Stanford University Principal Investigator in full time leadership role at Rubedo. Cofounder of Turn Biotechnologies. Marco earned a Masters degree in Biotechnology, a PhD in Neuroscience, and conducted post-doctoral training in Aging, Stem Cells Biology, and Regenerative Medicine in the leading lab of his mentor Prof. Thomas Rando at Stanford University School of Medicine. He then directed a research team at Stanford/VA Hospital Palo Alto focused on translational medical research in the fields of aging and regenerative medicine.

Marc Gallop: Chemist, drug hunter, serial entrepreneur and executive (in companies including Affimax [Nasdaq: AFFY], Xenoport [acquired] and Nurix with track records of FDA approved medicines including prodrugs) and former executive in residence at 5AM ventures. Key inventor of cell type specific promoiety chemistry.

Alex Laslavic: Computer Scientist and former Facebook lead engineer. Developer of target identification platform with a focus on differential gene expression analysis in senescent cells for neo moiety design. He is the CTO.

Technology

The team has identified a portfolio of small molecules that target signature metabolism features of rare (presumably pathogenic) cells and are currently working to test and optimize these compounds in preclinical models. The team has filed 3 patents for its pro-moieties platform. One patent, focused on glycosidic modifications of small molecules, was granted recently.

Maturity of opportunity

The company is currently raising a Series A. It has plans to bring in a chief business officer to aid the team in negotiating licensing deals for assets within its IPF, oncology pipeline and in other undisclosed indication programs. More details at the link below.

More information

For the full proposal with more details, see the discussion on Discourse here.