PHYSICIAN AND SCIENTIST, CLIFFORD STEER, MD, JOINS LUCIOLE PHARMACEUTICALS’ SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD

Luciole Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Clifford Steer

Dr. Steer's research has focused on liver regeneration and neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington’s disease, ALS and Parkinson’s disease.

The most important subcellular organelle is NOT the nucleus, but rather the mitochondrion. Without them and their intact content of mtDNA, the cell undergoes apoptosis and dies”

— Clifford Steer, MD.

NATICK, MA, UNITED STATES, June 21, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- PHYSICIAN AND SCIENTIST, CLIFFORD STEER, MD, JOINS LUCIOLE PHARMACEUTICALS’ SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD

Natick, MA – June 21, 2022 - Luciole Pharmaceuticals, Inc is pleased to announce that Clifford Steer, MD, is joining the company’s scientific advisory board.
Dr. Steer is Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, MN. He is a member of the

Stem Cell Institute, Masonic Cancer Center, Institute for Engineering in Medicine and the Lillehei Heart Institute. His research spans more than four decades and has focused on
liver regeneration and neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington’s disease, ALS and Parkinson’s disease.

His expertise covers a wide variety of disciplines including epigenetics, microRNAs, receptor-mediated endocytosis, non-viral gene therapy and gene editing which has resulted in over 300 scientific articles. He has organized and chaired many national and international scientific conferences related to liver diseases and has been a long-standing member of several National Institutes of Health Study Sections, co-editor of a major scientific journal in liver diseases (Hepatology), past editorial board member of Liver Transplantation and Genetic Vaccines and Therapy, and presently serves on the editorial boards of Hepatic Medicine and Genes.

Dr. Steer was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1991 and in 2014 was made an inaugural Fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
"In contrast to what I was taught in school growing up, the most important subcellular organelle is NOT the nucleus, but rather the mitochondrion. Without them and their intact content of mtDNA, the cell undergoes apoptosis and dies. Critical to their demise is the ROS that damages the structure/function of the mtDNA,” said Dr. Steer. “Luciole's cutting edge technology to repair that damage translates into cell survival, and more importantly, a potential treatment for a wide variety of diseases including neurodegenerative, cardiac and hepatic."
“Dr. Steer’s research on mitochondrial stabilization and the subsequent prevention of apoptosis, along with his expertise in liver disease provides an ideal combination of clinical and basic research interests and experience to support Luciole’s goals of developing novel therapeutics targeting mitochondrial DNA in obesity, metabolic syndrome and fatty liver disease. We are very excited to have him join us on our mission” said Dennis I. Goldberg, Ph.D., President and CEO of Luciole Pharmaceuticals.


About Luciole Pharmaceuticals

Luciole Pharmaceuticals is a startup biotech company developing novel therapeutics to repair damaged mtDNA, a critical aspect of the aging process. Mitochondria provide all mammalian cells with energy, which is essential to healthy tissues and longevity. A natural by-product of this function is the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) is physically tethered to the primary site of ROS generation. Oxidative damage to mtDNA is an inexorable aspect of human aging, causing mitochondrial dysfunction, mtDNA breakdown, activation of the innate immune system -- and ultimately cell death. Luciole is the first company to focus on enhancing the repair of oxidatively damaged mtDNA.

Luciole’s technology, targeting the discovery and development of small molecule agonists of OGG1 (8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase), the key enzyme in initiation of base excision repair (BER) of both nuclear and mtDNA is based on the cutting-edge work of Dr. Rumsey, Luciole’s co-founder, in collaboration with Vilhelm Bohr, M.D., Ph.D., Chief of the Laboratory on Molecular Gerontology at the National Institute on Aging, and of co-founders, R. Stephen Lloyd and Amanda K. McCullough at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Luciole was formed as a spinout from OHSU with exclusive, worldwide license to commercialize proprietary small molecule OGG1 activators based on the Lloyd/McCullough compounds. For further information, visit www.luciolepharma.com.