In this episode, I’ll be joined by Laura Soucek, CEO of Peptomyc, a spin off company from her research lab. Laura shares with us the 20-year journey she has been on to turn her breakthrough science into a drug that could change how cancer is treated. She talks about the role of profit in realising this purpose, the importance of people who say “no”, and how she has had to change to maintain progress towards her goal.
Peptomyc is focused on the development of a new generation of cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) targeting the Myc oncoprotein for cancer treatment. The company was founded in December 2014 and it is based on Dr. Soucek’s scientific research in Omomyc (the best direct Myc inhibitor known to date) over the last twenty years.
Laura Soucek graduated in Biological Sciences at the University La Sapienza, Rome (Italy) in 1996. She was then awarded her PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology in 2001. She was a postdoctoral fellow and Assistant Researcher in Dr. Gerard Evan’s laboratory at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF, USA) until 2011. Since then, she has been leading the Mouse Models of Cancer Therapies Laboratory at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), in Barcelona, Spain, where she is also ICREA Research Professor and Associate Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona (UAB). She is a cancer research expert specialized in Myc inhibition strategies, as well as founder and CEO of Peptomyc S.L.
Laura Soucek