About Sudhir Paul, Ph.D.
Dr. Sudhir Paul is a founder and scientist at Covalent Bioscience, a company developing Catalytic Immunotherapy/E-vaccine technologies. The company is developing the following products:
Cardizyme catabody for misfolded transthyretin (TTR) amyloid. Misfolding of the TTR protein causes amyloid diseases, resulting in failure of various vital organ systems in aged humans, including skeletal failure (carpal tunnel syndrome, lumbar spinal stenosis) and heart failure. Stenzyme is a human catabody that rapidly destroys and dissolves TTR aggregates with no dependence on inflammatory cells. The Stenzyme catabody product will address a significant unmet need of aging humans. Alzyme catabody for Alzheimer’s amyloid proteins. Brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s disease is triggered by accumulation of misfolded amyloid β (Aβ). Alzyme rapidly destroys and dissolves brain Aβ aggregates in mouse Alzheimer models. Unlike conventional antibodies to Aβ, Alzyme does not exacerbate brain inflammation due to its unique mechanism. We have prototype catabodies for rapid destruction of misfolded tau, which may also contribute to brain degeneration. Thus, we are poised to test brain cleansing by the Alzyme catabody, to realize the add-on value of combined Aβ/tau removal, and to remove the tau protein alone for rare tau-dominant dementias. Abzentek E-vaccine for HIV infection. Ordinary vaccines do not work against HIV for two reasons: most HIV coat regions mutates faster than the immune cells (B cells) produce antibodies, and the few constant coat regions stimulate a defective B cell response. Abzentek corrects the defect, enabling production of broadly neutralizing antibodies. All HIV strains require this coat region to initiate infection. Abzentek is the only HIV vaccine candidate documented to induce production of such broadly neutralizing antibodies. Most of the E-vaccine induced antibodies are catabodies and their molecular cousins, irreversible antibodies – both catabodies and irreversible antibodies display superior HIV neutralization compared to ordinary antibodies. Our E-vaccine approach is ready for testing prophylaxis against HIV world-wide, and it also has potential for a functional cure of the infection.