Carl Schoellhammer is co-founder and president of Suono Bio, a preclinical-stage company focused on the ultra-rapid delivery of novel therapeutics to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This technology is super cool - essentially using ultrasound devices to deliver drugs through the skin. This is game-changing for people with, for instance, colitis and other inflammatory issues in their gut. We talk about the technology and its future capabilities, as well as how Carl and his partner Gio developed the invention and spun it off into a company. It's this cross-disciplinary collaboration (Gio a gastroenterologist, Carl a chemical engineer with experience in pharma) that allowed them to solve the problem - a feature of Robert Langer's lab which is emulated in research labs around the world. Carl was a post-doc in Langer Lab along with Gio and he describes the process of discovering the invention and working with Bob and MIT to commercialize it. For those who don't know, Bob Langer is the most cited engineer in history. He's a modern day Thomas Edison. He's published/developed something like 800 papers, 500 patents, thousands of researchers have passed through his lab, he's spun off dozens of startup companies, 100's of licensing deals and more. It was really interesting to hear what it's like to work in Bob's lab and co-found a company with him. Just read this quote from Bob on the website of one of their investors, The Engine - “Suono Bio exemplifies what I’ve observed is required for a successful company: a platform technology with potentially broad utility, proof that it works in animal models, powerful patents, and publications in top-tier journals,” says Professor Langer. “The ability to deliver unformulated therapeutics with this technology is a tremendous achievement in the field of drug delivery and has potential for widespread applicability in a range of diseases. Carl is highly driven, extremely brilliant, even by MIT standards, and really wants to make a difference in the world.” More about Carl Carl received his B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley in Chemical Engineering, and completed his Ph.D. and postdoctoral training in the lab of Professor Robert Langer at MIT. His work has been published in Science Translational Medicine and Gastroenterology, and has been featured by Forbes, Popular Science, CNET, and The Atlantic, among others. He was the recipient of the 2015 Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Inventors Prize, the 2016 National Collegiate Inventors Competition top prize, and was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Healthcare. Find Carl on LinkedIn and Twitter More about Suono Suono Bio is developing a platform technology to enable the ultrasonic, targeted delivery of drugs and macromolecules, proteins, DNA, RNA, and even the gene-editing tool CRISPR, directly to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, their first use case. This enables them to “push” virtually any therapeutic class, including temperamental molecules, like nucleic acids, directly into cells with astounding efficacy and accuracy, affecting historically "undruggable" targets. They harness the power of ultrasound-induced cavitation to achieve this delivery and are applying it to creating new treatments for a variety of diseases, starting with inflammatory conditions. Learn more about Suono on their website. Join the Bountiful community today and realize your power to save the world. Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn if you haven't already.
