“Innovative therapeutics, engineered and delivered”
“Innovative therapeutics, engineered and delivered”
Last week Arnar Sigurðsson successfully defended his doctoral thesis in Biological Chemistry from the Technical University of Berlin. On April 15th he presented his work, on the first crystal structure of a novel Class-IV lanthipeptide synthetase as well as a newly elucidated Class-IV lanthipeptide. The team is glad to be able to refer to him as Dr. Arnar. We are very proud of his accomplishment, patience and perseverance. Cheers, Arnar!
Dr. Yan Xia joined Axelyf in April 2024 as Head of Nanotechnology Formulations, overseeing LNP programs for nucleic acid delivery. Prior to Axelyf, Yan served as Scientific Director of Platform Delivery at 76Bio, leading LNP discovery efforts for extrahepatic delivery of novel targeted protein degraders. Prior to this, she spent nearly seven years at Moderna and has made significant contributions to the development of biophysical tools for LNP characterization as well as fundamental understanding of LNP structure-activity relationship. Yan holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Connecticut, and B.E. in Light Chemical Engineering from Sichuan University, Chengdu, China. Welcome, Yan!
Today we announced along with SSPC, the SFI Research Center for Pharmaceuticals in Ireland, a new collaboration with leading supramolecular chemistry team at Maynooth University (MU) near Dublin. The aim of the collaboration is to discover new biomolecular delivery chemistries for a new generation of pharmaceutical products. We are excited to be working with prof. Rob Elmes and team at MU and SSPC- looking forward to promoting exciting molecular design and supramolecular chemistry for nanoparticles in biomolecular delivery.
Valentino (´Vale´) Parravicini has joined Axelyf as CSO, starting January 1st. Vale has 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development. He is assuming overall responsibility for the science and technical project leadership for Axelyf. Most recently he served as CSO of Oxford Cannabinoid Technologies, a UK-based biotechnology firm, where he has led the introduction of its first asset into clinical study. Previous to that role, Vale worked in R&D leading roles at Roche, GSK and GammaDelta Therapeutics, in immuno-inflammation and oncology. Born in Italy, Vale studied medicinal chemistry with a degree in molecular virology, before embarking on a post-doctoral assignment at the NIH and NIMR (now Crick Institute) in immunology. He moved to the United Kingdom in 2001 where he remains based. Welcome, Vale!
Simon Klüpfel has joined Axelyf as Head of Informatics, leading our efforts in modeling, data science and artificial intelligence. He was previously working at Reykjavik Energy (Orkuveita Reykjavíkur) in the role of senior reservoir engineer. Simon completed his Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry at the University of Iceland in 2012. He then did postdoctoral work in modeling and speech recognition at Reykjavik University for three years prior to focusing his energy on geothermal reservoir modeling, data management and automation. Before pursuing his Ph.D. in Iceland, Simon studied chemistry in his native Germany. His Diploma is from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Welcome, Simon!
Guðrún Hulda Ólafsdóttir has joined Axelyf this week as an Informatics Engineering Associate, specializing in data science and artificial intelligence. She recently completed her M.Sc. in biomedical engineering in Paris, France, where her focus was on developing image processing algorithms through the use of neural networks.
Before pursuing her master's degree abroad, Guðrún studied electrical and computer engineering at the University of Iceland and then worked as a research engineer at Nox Medical for two years.
Guðrún was born and raised in Siglufjörður, Iceland. Welcome, Guðrún!
Axelyf is 1 year old today! We established the company in Iceland on the 17th of August 2022. On the occasion, the team got together virtually, in multiple locations in three countries, to commemorate and wish the company many more years of innovation and progress.
Axelyf has been awarded its first grant from the Icelandic Centre for Research to investigate anti-inflammatory effects of BPH-555, an astaxanthin prodrug. The grant enables Axelyf to broaden its work on its lead compound to additional indications. The grant, which is in the Sprout (Sproti) category, is the Company's first non-dilutive funding.
Örn Almarsson was interviewed in Iceland for The Iceland Monitor and discussed the founders' motivation and establishment of Axelyf, the future of the company, and collaboration with Algalíf Iceland - a biotechnology company specializing in the production of asthaxanthin from algae.
Today Axelyf ehf and CEPROCOR, a research center in Santa Maria de Punilla, Córdoba province Argentina, signed a Master Services Agreement to formalize a multi-year collaboration to pursue chemistry and bio-analytical work for Axelyf’s pipeline projects. The minister of science and technology in Córdoba province, Mr. Pablo De Chiara, and Örn signed the agreement for the parties, cementing a strong relationship and signaling a bright future for the contributions of the talented Argentinian team to support Axelyf.
Congratulations to our newest employee, Arnar Sigurðsson, on two high-impact publications in prestigious journals in the past week. The first, published in Nature Methods Primers on March 30th (link) is an in-depth review of the field of Peptidomics, which has great importance and growing interest in therapeutics with the success of metabolic drugs, such as GLP-1 agonists and dual GLP1/GCP agonists in recent years. The second publication, published online in Angewandte Chemie on April 4th (link), is entitled “Discovery of the lanthipeptide curvocidin and structural insights into its trifunctional synthetase CuvL”. We are very proud of Arnar’s success with publishing his work in these world-class journals!
Arnar Sigurðsson has joined Axelyf as principal scientist and project manager. He is in the process of finalizing his Ph.D. thesis in structural biology from the Technical University in Berlin. Alongside thesis writing, Arnar has already become busy at Axelyf with grant writing and project work. Arnar is born and raised in Skagafjörður, Iceland. Before going for his Ph.D. in Germany, Arnar studied biochemistry at the University of Iceland. Welcome, Arnar, and best of luck completing your thesis defense this summer.
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