Industry User: MindImmune Therapeutics, Inc. 
MindImmune Therapeutics, Inc. a small pharmaceutical company with an impact that is emerging daily, is based in Kingston, at the University of Rhode Island. The company is developing first-in-class therapeutic drugs targeting the immune system to treat diseases of the central nervous system, including Alzheimer’s disease. The company recently announced its closing on a $12.4-million Series A financing. MindImmune is RI-INBRE’s Centralized Research Core Facility’s (CRCF) major industrial user, utilizing a wide range of instrumentation.
The drug discovery company, was founded in 2016 by Stevin Zorn, Ph.D., Frank Menniti, Ph.D., and Robert Nelson, Ph.D., all former colleagues at Pfizer’s Worldwide Research & Development. The current team has nearly one hundred years of combined experience in the pharmaceutical industry and are experts in central nervous system drug discovery. The human immune and central nervous systems are closely connected, and immune system dysfunction is a critical factor in brain impairment. MindImmune’s scientists have been instrumental in recognizing therapeutic opportunities to target the immune system in order to treat neurological disorders and brain diseases.
The public-private collaboration established between MindImmune, and URI’s George and Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience created a nucleus for biology, pharmacology, and neuroscience collaboration in Rhode Island.
Menniti, Chief Science Officer, said each principal “was appointed a faculty position as Ryan Research Professors of Neuroscience” in August 2016, and the MindImmune team teaches graduate-level Neuroscience courses within the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at the university.” He expressed his thanks to past President David Dooley and everyone at URI that welcomed them with open arms.
Zorn, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated they “looked at a lot of lab space and landed at URI, and still feel it is the place to be, in a vibrant community where MindImmune can thrive.” Everyone expressed their enthusiasm about being here and their partnership with URI and the Ryan Institute.
RI-INBRE’s Centralized Research Core Facility (CRCF) is a one-of-a-kind facility in the state of Rhode Island containing over $3.5 million of state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation and is across the hall from MindImmune’s lab. Menniti shared that they “need a lot of resources and use of RI-INBRE’s lab allows them to cost-effectively sustain their program.”
“There are millions of dollars of instrumentation that MindImmune has access to at RI-INBRE’s CRCF that we do not have to purchase, it’s not just dollars and cents, it makes sense,” said Zorn. “The equipment is running constantly and avoids the issue of consistently recalibrating it due to repeated startups and shutdowns.” He also revealed that “Bob is living his dream advancing the science that he built on during his career. Such is enabled by our collaboration with and his usage of the RI-INBRE center to advance our company goals of delivering a much-needed Alzheimer’s disease therapeutic.”
Nelson, Vice President of Exploratory Biology disclosed “We had two ‘Eureka!’ moments happen as we watched data read out from RI-INBRE center instruments. The first revealed a new way to track pathological immune cell recruitment into the brains of ‘Alzheimer mice,’ and the second revealed a therapeutic target for blocking that recruitment. Together these findings have helped chart the course for our path forward as a company.”
Charles Nolan and Joseph Hedde, both Associate Research Fellows, shared that they currently use specific instrumentation, but are delighted to know that as their needs change as the research evolves, that RI-INBRE is there to help.
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