Unlocking curative 
TCR-based therapies

Exogene is a techbio startup using deep learning to unlock the discovery of innovative 

TCR-based therapies for cancer treatment

 

Why

Human T-cells use T-cell receptors to eliminate diseased cells. This natural phenomenon can be harnessed for the development of TCR-based therapies to eradicate solid tumors. However, safe, high-affinity TCRs against cancer targets are rare and hard to identify using traditional wet-lab methods.

Our generative AI platform enables comprehensive mining of the TCR sequence space to discover completely novel, high-affinity and non-cross-reactive TCRs against targets shared across patients and tumor types.

Our Team

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Federico is a computational biologist with deep expertise in mathematical modelling and molecular biophysics. He holds a PhD in Molecular and Computational Oncology from the University of Oxford and has previously worked at the World Health Organization assessing cancer prevention strategies.

Federico Paoletti

CEO & Co-Founder

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Andrea is an experienced machine learning scientist. He holds a PhD in Bio-Inspired Computation and has several years of experience building AI. He previously led the ML team at Portent.io (acquired by Yougov) and has worked at the European Space Agency, Honda Research Institute and Vodafone.

Andrea Mambrini

CTO & Co-Founder

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Muhammad holds a PhD in Mathematical Biology and Biophysical Chemistry from the University of Warwick. Over the last decade, he has worked on a broad range of protein engineering and structural biology projects at the interface of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. Prior to joining Exogene, he had been working on developing novel methods for the study and diagnostics of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Muhammad Hasan

Director of R&D

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Claudia holds a DPhil in Oncology from the University of Oxford. She has worked on multiple projects across chemistry and biology including industrial placements at Isomerase and AstraZeneca. DPhil research focussed on developing novel fluorine-18 labelled PET imaging agents targeting proteins of the DNA damage response.

Claudia Fraser

Research Scientist

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Ryan is an experienced machine learning scientist with a PhD in Chemistry from Cornell University. He joined Exogene from the machine learning group at Bayer and his recent work there was published at ICML. He previously worked at Intel, and in his spare time he participates in machine learning competitions.

Ryan Henderson

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

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Jan-Gert is a protein biochemist with a PhD in Biology from the University of York. He previously worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) developing in vitro assays to study how the DNA replication machinery deals with obstacles such as DNA damage and protein roadblocks to maintain genome integrity.

Jan-Gert Brüning

Senior Protein Scientist

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Giovanni is a seasoned computational biologist with 6+ years experience in molecular dynamics and machine learning applied to TCR discovery and engineering from his time at Ardigen. Giovanni holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Giovanni Mazzocco

Senior Computational Biologist

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Shalom holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Manchester, where she assessed the impact of reducing agents in the disease micro environment on the efficacy of therapeutic antibodies. Following this, she helped to establish a mammalian display based antibody discovery platform at OXGENE, and developed assays to characterise lead candidates.

Shalom Gurjar

Scientist

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Tim is a multidisciplinary scientist who works at the interface of chemistry and biology. Tim holds a DPhil in Organic Chemistry from the University of Oxford where he worked to develop covalent antibacterial and antiviral compounds. Tim previously worked at Exact Sciences on a DNA methylation detection assay for cancer screening.

Tim Suits

Scientist

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Paweł is a versatile mathematics PhD and data scientist with a rich background in machine learning and bioinformatics. At Ardigen he developed advanced models to predict TCR-pHLA binding, function, and structure, using LLM models and AlphaFold2. He also created a transformer-based model to predict pHLA presentation on cell surfaces.

Paweł Biernat

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

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Alex is an experienced machine learning expert specialising in AI for biomedical research. At Ardigen, he served as a SCRUM master and developed models to predict peptide-HLA and TCR-pHLA binding. During his PhD at the Warsaw University of Technology, he focused on in-silico modelling of antigen recognition using machine learning.

Alexander Myronov

Machine Learning Scientist

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James is a project and operations manager with a strong background in tech start-ups. He previously helped scale high-throughput PCR testing operations at Oncologica and led projects to commercialise novel biomaterials at Xampla. James holds an MSci in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath.

James Ravenscroft

Operations Manager

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Amanda is an experienced immunologist with expertise in protein science and cell biology. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Monash University (Australia) and she has previously developed TCR bi-specifics for the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases at Immunocore, a top TCR company.

Amanda Woon

Consultant

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Sahan holds a PhD in Systems Engineering and Synthetic Biology from the University of Warwick. He developed the SpyPhage Platform that enables the rapid cell-free production and post-translational modification of bacteriophages for phage therapy. His current research spans the fields of synthetic biology, phage engineering and machine learning-led optimisations of cell-free TXTL systems.

Sahan Liyanagedera

Consultant

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Ricardo is a world expert in wet-lab methods for high-throughput screening of TCR-target pairs. He is a Principal Investigator at the University of Oxford and he has published in high-profile journals such as Nature Immunology, Cell and PNAS.

Ricardo Fernandes

Scientific Advisor

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Alasdair has extensive experience negotiating and managing AI-driven co-development partnerships in the biopharmaceutical industry. He is a Founding Partner at Selvedge Venture and former director of deep-tech venture investments at Leaps by Bayer.

Alasdair Thong

Commercial Advisor

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Livio is the co-founder of Vaxess Technologies, where he has pioneered a novel vaccine patch, raised over $80 million in funding, and collaborated with AstraZeneca on mRNA vaccine technologies. Before Vaxess, he worked at the United Nations, implementing silk production programs in Asia. Livio was named in the 2014 Forbes 30 under 30 list and holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

Livio Valenti

Commercial advisor

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Prof. Luis Paz-Ares is a leading lung cancer specialist and chairs the Medical Oncology Department at Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Spain. He led clinical trials for Tarlatamab, a bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, leading to FDA approval. A member of key oncology committees, he has authored over 340 papers in top journals like The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and Nature.

Luis Paz-Ares

Clinical Advisor

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Prof. Paul Nathan is a leading medical oncologist at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre (UK) and a key opinion leader in kidney cancer. He played a pivotal role in leading the Phase 3 trial of Kimmtrak, a TCR-based bispecific T-cell engager therapy for uveal melanoma, which ultimately secured FDA approval.

Paul Nathan

Clinical Advisor

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Partners

Email:

info@exogene.co.uk

Address:

Oxford BioEscalator, Innovation Building, Old Road Campus, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford, OX3 7FZ, United Kingdom