Atavistik Bio Announces Collaboration with Plex Research to Enrich the Informatics Capabilities of its AMPS Platform and Accelerate the Discovery of Novel Small Molecule Therapeutics

Proprietary AMPS platform enables the systematic and rapid interrogation of protein-metabolite interactions to reveal new, disease-relevant allosteric binding sites

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Atavistik Bio, a biotechnology company focused on revolutionizing the discovery of new allosteric protein-metabolite interactions to develop novel small molecule drugs for cancer, inborn errors of metabolism and other serious diseases, announced today that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Plex Research, a company providing a novel artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery platform. Atavistik Bio’s incorporation of Plex Research’s technology will enrich the informatics capabilities of its Atavistik Metabolite Protein Screening (AMPS) platform and accelerate its drug discovery pipeline.

Atavistik Bio’s scalable AMPS platform combines an extensive and continually expanding protein-metabolite database map (“the Interactome”), along with advanced informatics tools, deep expertise in chemistry, and computationally rich structure-based design to systematically identify and understand the role of protein-metabolite interactions across important biological and disease-relevant pathways to inform small molecule drug discovery.

Under the collaboration, Atavistik Bio will enhance its proprietary Interactome map with Plex Research’s cloud-based AI-powered drug discovery search engine of large and disparate data sources to reveal hidden connections between related metabolites and ligands, pathways, biomarkers, and disease-relevant biology. The integration of Atavistik Bio’s AMPS data with Plex Research’s platform will create a unique and customizable data analysis engine to rapidly enable novel insights for drug discovery.

“Allosteric interactions, which we know can present novel druggable nodes for intractable targets, historically have been difficult to discover. Using our AMPS platform, we are able to systematically and rapidly interrogate protein-metabolite interactions to reveal new, disease-relevant allosteric binding sites,” said Marion Dorsch, Ph.D., Atavistik Bio’s President and Chief Scientific Officer. “Fusing the enterprise-level capability of Plex’s access to large public databases with Atavistik’s proprietary data infrastructure has the potential to significantly augment the power of our AMPS platform and accelerate our efforts to drive the discovery of novel therapeutics for unmet patient needs.”

“Atavistik’s platform creates opportunities to drug proteins in new ways by uncovering previously unknown regulatory sites with potentially important roles in disease,” said Doug Selinger, President and CEO of Plex Research. “The breadth and depth of the Plex platform will provide important context for Atavistik’s AMPS data, which will enable better characterization of putative protein regulatory sites, ligand binding, and potential impacts on disease processes. The synergies between our technology platforms are compelling, and we’re excited to see where it will take us.”

About Atavistik Bio

Atavistik Bio is a biotechnology company that is harnessing the power of protein-metabolite interactions to add a new lens to drug discovery with the aim of transforming the lives of patients. By leveraging its optimized Atavistik Metabolite Protein Screening (AMPS) platform and computational approaches, Atavistik Bio aims to evaluate metabolite-protein interactions by screening proteins with their proprietary metabolite library to reveal where binding sites with biological function might exist. This will enable Atavistik Bio to build an extensive protein-metabolite database map (the “Interactome”) to reveal unique insights into the crosstalk between metabolite-protein pathways that were previously thought to be unrelated. Utilizing advanced informatics tools, deep expertise in chemistry and computationally rich structure-based drug design, Atavistik Bio will be able to identify and understand the role of these interactions across important biological and disease-relevant pathways to drive the discovery of novel therapeutics with an initial focus on inborn errors of metabolism and cancer. Atavistik Bio is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.atavistikbio.com.

About Plex Research

Plex Research has developed a novel form of artificial intelligence (AI) based on search engine algorithms which can derive new insights from massive amounts of diverse biomedical data. Plex’s platform works on minimally processed experimental data from numerous pharmacological and multi-omics sources, exposing hidden connections and enabling groundbreaking discoveries, with fully traceable provenance of all supporting data. Client proprietary data can be securely integrated into a dedicated instance of Plex, providing invaluable context, and allowing organizations to extract unparalleled value from their unique data assets.

Plex provides discovery services delivered by a team of highly experienced and multi-disciplinary scientists, as well as enterprise-level solutions built on its proprietary search engine AI technology. Plex Research is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.plexresearch.com.

Atavistik Bio Contact

Liz Melone
lizmelone@atavistikbio.com