WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TScan Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of T cell receptor (TCR) therapies which reprogram a patient’s own T cells to recognize shared cancer targets, today announced the appointment of Douglas Fambrough, Ph.D., to its board of directors (BoD). Dr. Fambrough, who is President and Chief Executive Officer as well as a founder of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is the second independent director to be named.
“Doug’s work as a genomic scientist and the founder and leader of Dicerna make him a perfect fit on our board of directors,” said David P. Southwell, President and Chief Executive Officer, TScan. “Dr. Fambrough has successfully evolved the scientific platform and pipeline at Dicerna, so his experience and insight will be invaluable at TScan as we leverage the expansive potential of our platform and advance TCR therapies for the treatment of both liquid and solid tumors into the clinic.”
“I’m delighted to be working with David and the TScan board as they build out a pipeline based on their novel discovery platform,” commented Dr. Fambrough. “This platform has the ability to both discover novel shared antigens, and find the off-target effects of TCRs that target those antigens - two real unmet needs in TCR therapy.”
Dr. Fambrough co-founded Dicerna in 2007 and has served as the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer since 2010. He has led Dicerna through both the development of its unique GalXC™ platform and its transformation into a successful, publicly traded company.
Prior to Dicerna, Dr. Fambrough specialized in financing innovative life science technology companies as a general partner with Oxford Bioscience Partners, a Boston-based venture capital firm. In 2003, Dr. Fambrough and two other investors created Sirna Therapeutics, a first-generation RNA interference (RNAi) pioneer and served on Sirna’s board of directors until its acquisition by Merck in 2006. Before joining Oxford Bioscience Partners, Dr. Fambrough spent 10 years as a genomic scientist, most recently at the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research, now known as the Broad Institute. He graduated from Cornell University and obtained his Ph.D. in genetics at the University of California, Berkeley.
About TScan Therapeutics
TScan is developing a portfolio of TCR therapies to treat both liquid and solid tumors by redesigning a patient’s own T cells to recognize and fight cancer using naturally-occurring T cell receptors (TCR) that recognize shared cancer targets. The TScan technology platform utilizes a genome-wide, high-throughput, and unbiased screening process to discover novel antigens and novel TCRs to target them. The platform also can be used to target existing antigens and to predict previously uncharacterized off-targets of known TCRs.
For more information, please visit www.tscan.com