Pandion Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing bifunctional protein therapeutics to achieve localized immunomodulation at the site of disease for durable, tissue-specific treatment of patients with autoimmune and inflammatory disease and organ transplant. Our localized approach represents a significant change from the systemic immunosuppression of conventional medicines. Through tissue-specific therapeutic targeting, Pandion’s approach has the potential to more effectively induce and sustain response and remission in patients with autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. In collaboration with the JDRF and Astellas Pharmaceuticals, we propose to develop new therapeutics to treat patients with T1D.

Our bifunctional therapeutics, by definition, have two functional activities – targeting and immunomodulation. Given the progressive nature of T1D it is critical to understand the protein expression on a cell-by-cell basis during the progression of T1D in order to develop tissue targeting bifunctional therapeutics. We have currently identified several potential candidate tether molecules for pancreatic targeting. However, currently it is unknown if the expression (total level, different isoforms, post-translational modifications) of these tissue-specific molecules changes during the progression of T1D. Furthermore, in order to enable FIH studies it is of the utmost importance that we demonstrate that our newly generated bifunctional proteins are able to localize to the intended tissue site, in this case pancreatic islets, prior to dosing in patients with T1D. This project seeks to understand the temporal regulation of pancreas specific proteins during the progression of T1D and confirm specific binding of our therapeutic bifunctional molecules. We hope to gain a better understanding of how these proteins are regulated, if at all, over-time to determine if these targets are suitable for prophylactic or therapeutic tissue-specific immunomodulation.