Luciano Santollani
Currently CTO and co-founder at Prox Biosciences, a seed-stage biotech company focused on developing targeted immunomodulatory biologics. Previously, I earned my PhD at MIT, where I engineered cytokine immunotherapies with Dane Wittrup and Darrell Irvine. I also spent time with the investment team at Pillar VC on early stage therapeutics deals. Before Boston, I did my undergrad at Stanford — my biotech adventure began there trying to commercialize an idea in the targeted degradation space. Outside of work, I spend my time trying to pull the perfect espresso shot and knowing way too many details about F1.
Writing
On biotech:
My PhD work centers around cytokine engineering for immuno-oncology, so it's a space I spend a lot of time thinking about. Here's a deep-dive on the current landscape of IL-2 for the Timmerman Report:
â–º The New Frontier of Cytokine Therapies: Engineered Selectivity | 7.26.2022 | Read on the Timmerman Report
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Glycobiology remains under-appreciated when we think of therapeutic hypotheses. Here are my thoughts on exciting research in the field and how we might start to see its impact:
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â–º Glycobiology Thread | 1.20.2022 | Read on Twitter
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Here's what I thought was most interesting from the 2022 FDA approvals and some thoughts on trends we might see in the coming years:
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â–º Reflections: 2022 FDA Approvals | 2.24.2023 | Read here
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I teamed up with some friends to write a 3-part series on RNA therapies for the Timmerman Report, touching on self-amplifying RNA modalities, delivery, and RNA editing:
â–º RNA 2.0 Startups Take Aim at Improved Delivery, Target Specificity | 10.6.2021 | Read on the Timmerman Report
► In RNA Therapeutics, are Circles Better than Lines? | 11.23.2021 | Read on the Timmerman Report​
â–º RNA Editing Seeks Its Place in the Gene Editing World | 1.5.2022 | Read on the Timmerman Report
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Some more thoughts on the future of cytokine development after attending SITC 2021:
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â–º Cytokine Thread | 11.24.2021 | Read on Twitter
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Summarizing some of my favorite sources of knowledge for COVID-19 as well as a quick description of some potential treatment approaches:
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â–º COVID-19 Potential Treatments, Explained | 4.2.2020 | Read on Medium
On biotech VC:
From knowing the price of renting lab space to building competitive compensation packages, it can be hard to find data on early stage biotech costs. Here's crowd-sourced resource I put together with the Pillar team that provides aggregate cost statistics on R&D spending, compensation, outsourcing, and G&A for early-stage biotech start-ups.
â–º A Founder’s Guide to Data-Driven Budgeting in Biotech | 7.19.2022 | Read on Pillar.VC
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My thoughts on the topic of biotech startups, emerging trends in the biotech industry, and convergence of technology and biology:
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â–º What to Consider Before Launching a Biotech Startup in 2022? | 4.15.2022 | Read on BiopharmaTrend.com
On life:
More about me, my life philosophy, and my decision to go to graduate school:
â–º Introduction | 12.7.2018 | Read on Medium
Research publications:
The following are publications I have been involved with in the Wittrup and Irvine Labs at MIT:
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â–º Local delivery of cell surface-targeted immunocytokines programs systemic anti-tumor immunity | 1.03.2024 | Read on bioRxiv
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â–º Intratumourally injected alum-tethered cytokines elicit potent and safer local and systemic anticancer immunity | 1.10.2022 | Read on Nature Biomedical Engineering
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â–º Tregs constrain CD8+ T cell priming required for curative intratumorally anchored anti-4-1BB immunotherapy | 2.01.2023 | Read on bioRxiv
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â–º An affinity threshold for maximum efficacy in anti-PD-1 immunotherapy | 8.4.2022 | Read on mAbs
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â–º Reprogramming brain immunosurveillance with engineered cytokines (preprint) | 6.24.2022 | Read on bioRxiv
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