About Us
InnDura Therapeutics Inc is a cancer therapeutics biotechnology company, located at LabCentral in Cambridge, Massachusetts. InnDura's platform is based on licensed technologies developed by Dr. Rizwan Romee at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor Jianzhu Chen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that focuses on EVE16 engineering of Natural Killer cells.
Meet The Team
Meet The Scientific Advisory Board
Dr Rizwan Romee
Dr. Rizwan Romee is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and leads the NK Cell Therapeutics Initiative at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The research focus of his laboratory is genetic manipulation of human Natural Killer (NK) cells to enhance their anti-tumor function and simultaneously modulate the immune suppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). His work at Washington University helped describe human memory-like NK cells with enhanced anti-tumor activity and he led a first-in-human clinical trial of these cells in patients with advanced AML demonstrating safety and promising activity. He is currently leading translational NK cell program at DF/Harvard Cancer Center evaluating memory-like NK cells in combination with immune-modulatory agents including an IL-15 super-agonist and CTLA4 inhibitor in patients with advanced malignancies including AML and MDS relapsed after stem cell transplantation, multiple myeloma and head and neck cancer.
Jianzhu Chen
Jianzhu Chen is Professor of Biology at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. degree in genetics from Stanford University. He was a postdoctoral fellow and then an instructor at Harvard Medical School before he joined the faculty at MIT. Dr. Chen’s research seeks a fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Over the years, Dr. Chen has made significant contributions to a broad area of research in immunology, cancer research, infectious diseases, and animal models of human diseases. Recently, Dr. Chen’s research activity has focused on development of tumor-specific CAR-NK cells and re-programming macrophages for disease intervention, including cancer, metabolic diseases and infectious diseases.
Lewis L. Lanier
Lewis L. Lanier is an American Cancer Society Professor and J. Michael Bishop MD Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California San Francisco. Dr. Lanier received his B.S. in Biology from Virginia Tech and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from UNC – Chapel Hill. After postdoctoral studies, he joined the R&D Department at the Becton Dickinson Monoclonal Center, advancing to Associate Director. In 1990, he joined the DNAX Research Institute, where he advanced to Director of Immunobiology, and in 1999 joined the faculty of UCSF. His research group studies Natural Killer cells, which recognize and eliminate cells that have become transformed or infected by viruses. In recognition of his contributions he was awarded the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute (2002), received the Rose Payne Award for contributions to the field of Immunogenetics by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (2005), was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (2010), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011). He served as President of the American Association of Immunologists (2006-2007), received the AAI Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2017, and awarded the AAI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
Saar Gill
Dr. Gill obtained his medical degree and Ph.D in immunology from the University of Melbourne, and trained in hematology at St Vincent’s Hospital, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. In 2008 he moved to the United States, first to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship in cellular therapy at Stanford University, and then in 2011 to the University of Pennsylvania where he is now an Associate Professor of medicine. Dr. Gill’s clinical practice is in leukemia and bone marrow transplantation. He has led clinical trials of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for chronic and acute leukemias that were developed in his lab. Dr. Gill’s research laboratory studies the interface between adoptive cellular therapy and genetic engineering, leading to over 60 patents, over 100 research papers and two spin-out biotechnology companies.
Toni K. Choueiri
Toni K. Choueiri, MD is the Director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary (GU) Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), co-leader of the Kidney Cancer Program at DanaFarber/Harvard Cancer Center, and the Jerome and Nancy Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the Medical Director, International Strategic Initiatives at DFCI and past President of the Medical Staff at DFCI (2016-2018). He received the George Canellos Award for Excellence in Clinical Investigation and Patient Care from DFCI in 2013, the Eugene Schonfeld Award from the Kidney Cancer Association (KCA) in 2016, and is a 2021 Giants of Cancer Care inductee. He serves on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Kidney Cancer Panel, KidneyCan Board, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) GU Steering Committee and is past Chairman (2015-2018) of the Medical and Scientific Steering Committee of the KCA. Dr. Choueiri is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI). In addition, he is an Aresty Scholar from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Pr. Choueiri is interested in developing novel experimental therapies and biomarkers in GU malignancies, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In a series of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) articles on which he was either first or senior author, Dr. Choueiri and colleagues have made seminal observations that have defined and evolved the treatment of RCC and led to the approval of several therapies such as Cabozantinib, Pazopanib, Avelumab+Axitinib, Cabozantinib+Nivolumab, and Pembrolizumab+Lenvatinib, as well as adjuvant pembrolizumab. His research also focuses on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment outcomes of GU cancers, especially through having co-established the International Metastatic RCC Database Consortium criteria for RCC risk stratification. His biomarker work has shed light on complex immunogenomics mechanisms contributing to response and resistance to targeted therapy and immunotherapy. He has also contributed to our understanding of the underlying biology and rationale for therapies in rare histological variants of RCC such as papillary, translocation, and sarcomatoid RCC. Pr. Choueiri has received research funding from the NCI, the Department of Defense (DOD), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and industry partners. His work has been published in journals such as the NEJM, JAMA, Nature, Nature Medicine, Science, The Lancet, Lancet Oncology, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. He lectures frequently throughout the United States and around the world. He has over 750 PubMed-indexed publications and is the lead investigator of multiple national and international phase I-III clinical trials in GU cancers.
Our Values
We CHOOSE to
FIGHT CANCER
Alongside all those patients who did not choose to be in that fight for themselves
We CHOOSE to
WORK AS A TEAM
And to collaborate with others because together we are better and we can achieve more
We CHOOSE to
RESPECT OTHERS
Because diversity and inclusiveness enriches us as people and as an organisation
We CHOOSE to
BE INNOVATORS
Because we want to add to the body of human knowledge and understanding
We CHOOSE to
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Because if we succeed then we can change lives for millions of people
