Mirna Therapeutics Announces Dr. Frank Slack as Scientific Advisor

AUSTIN, Texas--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Mirna Therapeutics Inc. (“Mirna”) announced today that Frank Slack, Ph.D., of Yale University in New Haven, CT, has joined the Company as a Scientific Advisor.

“Having Dr. Slack as a Scientific Advisor to Mirna ensures our continued involvement with one of the pioneering microRNA researchers, and will help us craft our research and discovery plans for the years ahead.”

“We are excited about having Dr. Slack join Daniel Von Hoff, M.D., and Steven McKnight, Ph.D., as Scientific Advisors to Mirna. Dr. Slack was among the first to discover the existence of a human microRNA, and for several years Mirna has had a productive research collaboration with Dr. Slack’s laboratory around let-7, a key microRNA,” said Dr. Paul Lammers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mirna Therapeutics. “Having Dr. Slack as a Scientific Advisor to Mirna ensures our continued involvement with one of the pioneering microRNA researchers, and will help us craft our research and discovery plans for the years ahead.”

Dr. Frank Slack received his B.Sc. from the University of Cape Town in South Africa and his Ph.D. in molecular biology from Tufts University School of Medicine. He started his work on microRNAs as a postdoctoral fellow in Gary Ruvkun’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School where he co-discovered let-7, the second known microRNA and the first known human microRNA. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University and studies the roles of microRNAs and their targets in cancer, development, and aging.

Dr. Slack stated, “Mirna’s research into microRNAs started as early as 2002, and since then Mirna has built an impressive understanding of the critical role that microRNAs play in tumorigenesis. I am pleased to be working with a company singularly focused on advancing microRNA therapies.”

In an ongoing collaboration with Mirna scientists, the Slack laboratory at Yale has been investigating the tumor suppressor role of let-7 in human cancer. These studies showed that let-7 is frequently expressed at reduced levels in lung tumors and plays a causal role in lung tumorigenesis. The tumor suppressive function of let-7 can be explained by the observation that let-7 negatively regulates the expression of multiple tumor-promoting genes, one of which is RAS, a known key oncogene in the development of lung cancer.

The Slack/Mirna collaboration provided the first demonstration of how loss of an endogenous microRNA can contribute to human cancer. Based on these findings, scientists from the Slack laboratory and Mirna explored the therapeutic potential of let-7 and showed that re-introduction of let-7 inhibits tumor growth in mouse models of lung cancer. The collaborative work on let-7 is described in a series of publications in the journals Cell, Cancer Research, Cell Cycle and Oncogene (Johnson et al., 2005, Cell; Johnson et al., 2007, Cancer Res.; Esquela-Kerscher et al., Cell Cycle, 2008; Trang et al., Oncogene, 2009).

Mirna has previously entered into a worldwide exclusive license agreement with Yale University for the therapeutic use of let-7.

About Mirna Therapeutics

Mirna Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of microRNA (miRNA) therapeutics. The Company has a substantial body of pending intellectual property around miRNAs developed by its own scientists as well as in-licensed from other institutions. Mirna’s IP portfolio contains >300 miRNAs with applications in oncology and other diseases. Oncology-directed miRNAs include those that are key tumor suppressors in cancer, such as miR-34 and let-7 that have proven to block tumor growth in a number of different pre-clinical animal studies. The Company, founded in 2007, is located in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit www.mirnarx.com.