Will Van Treuren
Principal Scientist, Aizen Therapeutics
Mirror peptides as a novel therapeutic modality
Company Description
D-amino acids have a long history in peptide and protein medicinal chemistry due to their ability to impart protease resistance. Despite this advantage, developing all-D peptides (mirror peptides) as therapeutics has been infeasible due to a wide range of technical limitations. Aizen is pioneering a AI platform for the design of mirror peptides, marrying the inherent advantages of D-amino acids with in-silico binder design to rapidly develop privileged therapeutic scaffolds. In this talk I'll present an overview of Aizen's computational strategy, and a case study on the design of binders across a range of targets.
Bio
Will Van Treuren holds a PhD from Stanford University (2020). His PhD work focused on microbial metabolism in the human intestine, and the discovery of microbial metabolites with immunomodulatory potential. Will co-founded Interface Biosciences in 2021 based on his PhD work, with the goal of developing endogenous microbial metabolites as immunomodulatory medicines. In 2025, Will left Interface to join Aizen Therapeutics, where he's a Principal Scientist focused on designing and advancing bioavailable mirror peptide programs.