PROVIDENCE – A biotech company with roots in Brown University has secured $375,000 from the Slater Technology Fund to support the creation of lab-developed biological structures that treat chronic heart and respiratory diseases.
XM Therapeutics, which spun out from Brown University in 2022 and is currently raising seed funding, focuses on the body’s extracellular matrix, a network of proteins and scaffolds that powers cell creation, growth and repairs to all body tissues and organs. In people with certain chronic illnesses, the ECM structure can’t carry out this usual healing and repair processes, leading to inflammation, scarring and poor oxygen supply.
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Using technology developed by Jeffrey Morgan, a Brown University professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, the team intends to use lab-created ECM particles to repair diseased organ tissues that occur in conditions such as heart failure, pulmonary fibrosis and myocarditis.
“Within months, in collaboration with Brown University, our team has established a production platform and carried out proof of principle testing,” said Frank Ahmann, CEO, co-founder and president of XM Therapeutics.
“Recent data confirms the ability of our products to change the composition of the dysfunctional ECM to reduce scar size and improve muscle contractility in a preclinical heart model,” Ahmann continued, and research “is yielding new insights into the mechanisms at work between cells and the ECM in the healing process that follows tissue injury.”
If successful, this technology could later be applied to conditions such as glaucoma, COPD, kidney failure, osteoarthritis and cancerous tumors, the team says.
XM Therapeutics will use the Slater funding to build a platform supporting the design and testing of human ECM particles, as well as forming partnerships with pharmaceutical companies that can assist in clinical trials and regulatory approval marketing.
Jacquelyn Voghel is a PBN staff writer. You may reach her at Voghel@PBN.com.
