Bar Harbor, Maine – Cyteir Therapeutics, a company spun out from The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) to develop a new approach to cancer treatment based on the science of genomic instability, has received a $50,000 award from Janssen Labs to become a part of the Janssen Labs @LabCentral community for one year.
Janssen Labs, part of Janssen Research & Development, LLC, is a life science incubator designed to enhance the innovation ecosystem. Cyteir is an early stage biotechnology company founded on the groundbreaking cancer research of JAX Associate Professor Kevin Mills, Ph.D.
Cyteir was one of three New England-based start-ups to be awarded space in LabCentral, a nonprofit biotech incubator in Boston’s Kendall Square, for one year. Johnson & Johnson is a founding sponsor of LabCentral, which provides promising biomedical innovators with laboratory space and infrastructure as well as assistance in establishing a successful commercial presence.
Mills and his laboratory have identified molecules that prevent repair of some cancer cells, providing a new approach to cancer treatment that promises to target genetically defined cancers while significantly reducing the side effects of chemotherapy and potentially avoiding the development of treatment resistance.
“This award from Janssen Labs will allow us to accelerate our research and development programs dramatically,” Mills says. “Being a part of Janssen Labs @LabCentral enables us to fast-track our current preclinical work, and also puts us in the heart of a vibrant, innovative, and collaborative community.”
Mills co-founded Cyteir Therapeutics in 2012 with Jackson Laboratory Chairman Emeritus David Shaw and biotech investor Timothy Romberger.
The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution and National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and a new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs a total staff of more than 1,600. Its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.