Generating
Immunity For Life

11/30/22 – Corner Therapeutics to Present Pre-Clinical Data on their Novel Dendritic Cell Hyperactivation Platform at the 4th Inflammasome Therapeutics Summit
11/10/22 – Corner Therapeutics Debuts with Data Presentation on its Dendritic Cell Hyperactivation Platform at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting

Our Mission

Corner seeks to transform standard of care, ushering in a new era of rapid, patient-friendly and low-cost immunotherapies – even for the most difficult to treat diseases.

Corner is pioneering a new class of muti-purpose immunotherapies that protect the young and old. Our versatile dendritic cell hyperactivation (hDC) platform induces exceptional memory T cell responses that provide robust and durable immunity against a virtually unbounded range of cancers and infectious diseases.

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Our Science

Bridging knowledge gaps that limit the success of current immunotherapies.

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Why are we unique?

We generate exceptional memory T cells that provide life-long immunity

Our platform uses a new class of immunotherapy called hyperactivators which enhances the intelligence of dendritic cells (DCs) beyond what is possible with current therapies. As apex regulators of our immune system, DCs can generate a diverse repertoire of long-lived memory T cells. Our hyperactivators represent the only immunotherapy that enables DCs to stimulate T cell mediated immunity—for life.

We unleash the power of inflammasome activation within live DCs

Hyperactivators stimulate inflammasomes within living DCs to enable production of IL-1β, the key immunostimulant that drives memory T cell activity. Prior attempts to target DCs therapeutically have failed to provide durable immunity – they either cannot stimulate the IL-1β signal, or they use inflammasome stimuli that kill DCs via pyroptosis. By unleashing IL-1β signals from living DCs, we induce long lasting memory T cells that provide immunity for life.

We lead DCs to be in the right place, at the right time

Our proprietary hyperactivators are uniquely capable of stimulating DC migration to lymph nodes, where naïve and memory T cells are activated. While previous attempts to stimulate DC activities were poor inducers of migration, we ensure these apex immune regulators are in the right place, at the right time, to promote durable immunity.

We are antigen agnostic

Our muti-purpose platform can target a wide array of antigens ranging from known single antigens to a complex source of unidentified antigens. We are leading a new era of rapid and low-cost immunotherapies. We provide personalized immunotherapy that is available for all patients within days.

Our Leadership

Management

Steven M. Altschuler, M.D.

CEO, Board Chair
 

Jonathan Kagan, Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder and Advisor, Board Member

Nick Seaver

CBO/CFO, Board Member
 

Andrew Cornforth, Ph.D.

CTO

Laura Brandano, Ph.D.

VP, Operations

Sivan Elloul, Ph.D.

VP, Research and Development

Scientific Cofounders and Advisors

Jeff Karp, Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder,
Board Member
 

Andrew Bellinger, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder,
Board Member

Alan Ezekowitz, M.B., Ch.B., D. Phil.

SAB Member,
Board Member

Arlene Sharpe, M.D., Ph.D.

SAB Member

Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.

SAB Member

F. Stephen Hodi, M.D.

SAB Member

Careers

Our dynamic workplace has tremendous opportunity for growth, and we are seeking talented individuals that are inspired and motivated to make exponential strides in curing disease through immunotherapy treatments.
SEE CURRENT OPEN POSITIONS
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mgmt-Steve-M-Altschuler

Steven M. Altschuler, M.D.

CEO, Board Chair

Steve is a cofounder, Chief Executive Officer and board chair of Corner Therapeutics. He also currently serves as the Managing Director of Healthcare Ventures at Ziff Capital Partners. Previously, he served as CEO for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) from 2000 to 2015 and led CHOP’s transformation from a traditional academic medical center and specialty hospital to a world leader in pediatric health care and research. Dr. Altschuler then went on to cofound Spark Therapeutics, which developed and commercialized the gene therapy programs originating at CHOP and other institutions. Dr. Altschuler completed a pediatric internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston and a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at CHOP. He received his M.D. and B.A. in Mathematics from Case Western Reserve University.

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Jonathan Kagan, Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder and Advisor, Board Member

Jon is a cofounder, President and board director of Corner Therapeutics. Outside of Corner, he is the Marian R. Neutra, Ph.D. Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and the director of Basic Research and Shwachman Chair in Gastroenterology at Boston Children’s Hospital. His lab’s primary research interest is to understand the molecular basis of inflammation and long-term protective immunity. He has made significant discoveries in this area, most notably in the inflammatory pathways stimulated by Toll-like Receptors, RIG-I like Receptors, cGAS-STING and inflammasomes. His integrative analyses of innate signaling pathways have led to a comprehensive map of the subcellular sites of innate immune signaling. This map serves as the foundation of our understanding of the earliest stages of host-microbe interactions. Jon is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and his work has been recognized with awards from the American Association of Immunologists, the Burroughs Welcome Fund and the International Endotoxin and Innate Immunity Society. He received his Ph.D. in Microbial Pathogenesis from Yale University under Dr. Craig Roy, and he performed postdoctoral training with HHMI Investigator Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov in the Immunobiology Department at the Yale University School of Medicine.

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Nick Seaver

CBO/CFO, Board Member

Nick serves as the Chief Business Officer, Chief Financial Officer and is a board director of Corner Therapeutics. He is also founding member and Managing Director at Ziff Capital Partners, where he oversees investments with a focus on biotech. Previously, Mr. Seaver was the CEO of Thanyapura, a holding company based in Thailand with a diversified portfolio of assets including a medical center, security company, and destination resort. His background includes private equity investing at JP Morgan Partners and mergers and acquisitions at Lazard Frères. He is a graduate of Harvard College.
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Andrew Cornforth, Ph.D.

CTO

Andrew serves as the Chief Technology Officer at Corner Therapeutics. His background is in cell and gene therapy, having led many programs from early development to late-stage clinical trials. His early career focused on dendritic cell-based therapeutics utilizing novel manufacturing approaches to purify and expand tumor stem cells as the antigen source. Prior to joining Corner, he was Vice President of Process Development at TCR2 Therapeutics for 4 years having taken their TRuC® engineered T-cell program from benchscale to two successful IND applications and clinical results. Andrew received his Ph.D. in Experimental Pathology and B.S. in Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine.

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Laura Brandano, Ph.D.

VP, Operations

Laura serves as the Vice President of Operations at Corner Therapeutics. With an initial focus on building out the company’s internal infrastructures, she designed and implemented a majority of the operational and administrative functions of the business. Previously, Laura led the buildouts and expansions of three Biotech incubators in Boston and Cambridge. She then went on to serve as the Site Director of two of these facilities: the Ipsen Innovation Center Biolabs and Tufts Launchpad Biolabs. In this capacity, she oversaw all operational activities of the sites, including budgets and financials, partner and client relations, resident company selection, staff management, and facility compliance. A molecular biologist by training, Laura has 12 years of academic and industry research experience in clinical testing, assay development and drug screening. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Virology from the UMass Medical School in Worcester and her B.S. in Biology from Boston College.

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Sivan Elloul, Ph.D.

VP, Research and Development

Sivan Elloul, PhD, is the Vice President of Research and Development. Sivan has been studying cancer biology and cancer immunotherapy for many years. Sivan received her PhD in Pharmacology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel where she studied cancer biology and underlying processes leading to cancer metastasis. She later completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard University focusing on cancer signaling and the effects on cancer progression. Prior to joining Corner, Sivan worked on developing novel approaches for immune activation using cell engineering. Most recently, Sivan served as Senior Director, Oncology Discovery at Rubius Therapeutics, where she led the research and pre-clinical development of several Oncology programs, taking these programs from inception to IND submissions and First in Human studies.

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Jeff Karp, Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder, Board Member

Dr. Jeff Karp is a cofounder and board director of Corner Therapeutics. He is also the Distinguished Chair in Clinical Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine and a Professor of Anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Karp is a principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an affiliate faculty member at the Broad Institute and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He has published >125 peer-reviewed papers, with >28,000 citations, and has given over 300 invited lectures. Dr. Karp also has >100 issued or pending national and international patents. Various technologies developed in his laboratory have led to multiple products currently in development or on the market, through the launch of ten companies with >$550 million in funding. Dr. Karp received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto and completed his postdoctoral research with Dr. Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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Andrew Bellinger, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientific Cofounder, Board Member

Dr. Andrew Bellinger is a cofounder and board director of Corner Therapeutics. Dr. Bellinger specializes in company creation and growth, building high performing R&D teams, translational medicine, drug delivery, and the clinical development of novel therapies. He currently serves as chief scientific officer at Verve Therapeutics and is board-certified in cardiovascular medicine and internal medicine. Prior to joining Verve, Dr. Bellinger co-founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of Lyndra Therapeutics, and prior to that as the Chief Scientific Officer of Cocoon Biotech. Dr. Bellinger completed his clinical training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and his clinical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He completed his postdoctoral research with Dr. Robert Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Bellinger holds an M.D., a Ph.D., and an M.Phil. from Columbia University, an M.S. in mathematics from New York University, and an A.B. in physics from Princeton University.

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Alan Ezekowitz, M.B., Ch.B., D. Phil.

SAB Member, Board Member

Dr. Alan Ezekowitz is a partner at Third Rock Ventures and has been widely regarded for his success as a physician scientist, industry executive and entrepreneur. He is best known for helping define the role of pattern recognition molecules in innate immunity and his work in phagocyte biology. Dr. Ezekowitz spent over 20 years at Harvard Medical where he was the Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics and Chief of Pediatric Services the Mass General Hospital for Children and the Partners Healthcare System. He later joined Merck Research Laboratories as the senior vice president and franchise head of bone, respiratory, immunology, and endocrine. Dr. Ezekowitz co-founded Abide Therapeutics, which developed a platform to discover new classes of drugs for neurological disorders. He served as Abide’s CEO until it’s acquisition in 2019. Dr. Ezekowitz is also a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a Fellow of AAAS. Dr. Ezekowitz received his medical training at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and his Ph.D. from Oxford University. He completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at Oxford and another in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Children’s Hospital in Boston, where he completed his clinical training as well. Dr. Ezekowitz is also a board director of Corner Therapeutics.

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Arlene Sharpe, M.D., Ph.D.

SAB Member

Dr. Arlene Sharpe is the George Fabyan Professor of Comparative Pathology at Harvard Medical School and best known for her groundbreaking work on T cell co-stimulation and immune checkpoint inhibition. Her studies defined the functions of B7-1, B7-2, CTLA-4, and PD-1 and its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2, which provided critical translational insights in the development of immunotherapies. In recognition of these achievements, Dr. Sharpe has received several renowned awards, such as the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor immunology, and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for her contributions to the discovery of the PD-1 pathway. She was listed by Thomas Reuters as one of the most Highly Cited Researchers in 2014, 2015 and 2017, and as a 2016 Citation Laureate. Dr. Sharpe is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and served as the hundredth president of the American Association of Immunologists from 2016 to 2017. She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University. She also completed her medical training from Harvard Medical School and residency in pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

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Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D.

SAB Member

Dr. Ruslan Medzhitov is the Sterling Professor in the Department of Immunobiology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Medzhitov is a highly accomplished researcher in immune regulation, inflammatory responses and mechanisms of host-microbial interactions. He has earned many notable awards for his work, some of which include the William B. Coley Award from the Cancer Research Institute, the Emil von Behring Award, the AAI–BD Biosciences Investigator Award, Doctor Honoris Causae from Munich University and Utrecht University, the Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine, the Else Kröner- Fresenius-Foundation inaugural international prize in immunology, and the inaugural Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Medzhitov is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the Russian Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He obtained his Ph.D. from Moscow State University and conducted his postdoctoral studies at Yale University School of Medicine.

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F. Stephen Hodi, M.D.

SAB Member

Dr. F. Stephen Hodi is the Sharon Crowley Martin Chair in Melanoma at Dana-Farber, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hodi’s research focuses on gene therapy and immunotherapy, specializing in therapeutics to treat melanoma. Dr. Hodi led the first clinical trial of the CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) and the phase III registration trial, which led to its FDA approval for metastatic melanoma in 2011. Dr. Hodi was also instrumental in a phase I study for patients with advanced melanoma who received the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo), which received FDA approval for melanoma later that year. Based on findings from Dr Hodi and colleagues, the FDA also approved the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab to treat unresectable or metastatic melanoma. Dr. Hodi is a member of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and a founding member of the Society for Melanoma Research. He is also a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Melanoma Committee and the International Society for the Biological Therapy of Cancer. Dr. Hodi received his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College and completed postdoctoral training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.