Modulus Discovery, Inc., an early stage drug discovery company announced today the initiation of a research collaboration with Professor Tsutomu Suzuki of Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo for target validation of a potential drug discovery target.

Prof. Suzuki is one of the leading scientists in the field of RNA modification, especially in tRNA, and has been elucidating the physiological function of the modifications. His interests in this area include the development of highly accurate analytical method using mass-spectrometry to quantify RNA modifications, and functional analysis of these modifications and its association with human diseases.

This collaboration provides Modulus with detailed information that can help elucidate novel mechanisms of RNA modification and its role in certain diseases and provides significant synergies to the innovative drug discovery programs in our target pipeline.

“We welcome the initiation of this collaboration with Professor Suzuki. He is known globally as the leading researcher in the exciting field of RNA modification, one of the highly attractive areas of recent interest in drug discovery.” said S. Roy Kimura, CEO of Modulus. “We believe that this collaboration will largely enhance the value of our discovery pipeline, and further enable our mission to accelerate the discovery of new medicines for patients in need.”

“RNA modification is the information not encoded in the genome, and plays a crucial role in cellular functions. In emerging field of epitranscriptome, it is becoming a significant area of research in life science as a novel layer of regulatory gene expression.” said Prof. Tsutomu Suzuki. “Our lab has been interested in physiological aspects of various types of RNA modifications, including methylation and acetylation. We have also developed accurate analytical methods to detect and quantify RNA methylations. I’m very much thrilled that our research could contribute to the discovery of novel treatments for human diseases through this collaboration.”