Palleon Co-Founder Awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Palleon Pharmaceuticals scientific co-founder Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D., has been awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Waltham-based Palleon is a clinical-stage company pioneering glyco-immunology drug development to treat cancer and inflammatory diseases. The award reflects Dr. Bertozzi’s deep contributions not only to chemistry but to biology and medicine, including the foundational science underlying Palleon’s first-in-class, clinical-stage therapeutic platform.

Dr. Bertozzi invented the field of bioorthogonal chemistry, which allows researchers to chemically modify molecules in living systems without interfering with normal cell functions.  These methods were particularly important for understanding the function of cell surface glycosylation and ultimately led to the discovery that a class of glycans known as sialoglycans suppresses the immune system in cancer. For decades, a greater density of sialoglycans on tumor cell surfaces had been known to correlate with worse outcomes for patients, but the mechanism was unknown.

Dr. Bertozzi shares the award with Morten Meldal, Ph.D., a Danish chemist and professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, and K. Barry Sharpless, Ph.D, professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California and a prior Nobel Prize recipient. Drs. Meldal and Sharpless laid the foundation for click chemistry, a functional form of chemistry where molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently. Dr. Bertozzi’s work took this approach to a new level by utilizing it in living organisms.

Dr. Bertozzi’s research provided the critical link for understanding how cell surface glycosylation is involved in immune modulation. This discovery became the basis for her joining Palleon in 2016 as a scientific co-founder and for the development of the company’s proprietary drug development platform, which utilizes sialidase enzymes to restore antitumor immunity. (Source: Palleon Pharmaceuticals Website, 05 October, 2022)