Spotlight Innovation has entered into a Sponsored Research Agreement with Indiana University to support research directed by Elliot Androphy, M.D., aimed at developing drugs to treat patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Dr. Androphy is a member of Spotlight Innovation's Scientific Advisory Board and a co-inventor of STL-182, the company's lead product candidate for SMA.
Dr. Androphy is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology of Indiana University School of Medicine and has published widely in high-impact journals including Science, Nature, EMBO Molecular Medicine, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Virology, and Molecular Cell. He served as Vice Chair for Research of the Department of Medicine and Director of the M.D./Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where his lab characterized the disease-causing mechanism of alternative splicing of the SMN2 gene. At Indiana University School of Medicine, Dr. Androphy has used a novel, cell-based high throughput screen for compounds that increase levels of the SMN protein. This work has led to the identification of pre-clinical drug candidates for SMA.