Pere Santamaria

Dr. Pere Santamaria is Founder and CSO of Parvus Therapeutics, UCalgary Research Excellence Chair at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and Group Leader, IDIBAPS, Barcelona. The focus of most of hisscientific work has been to try to understand the immunogenetics and immunopathogenesis of autoimmune disorders, with a particular emphasis on type 1 diabetes, to try to find targets for therapeutic intervention. Early efforts centered on the relationship between genetic susceptibility and resistance to autoimmunity and T-cell tolerance. This work led to the serendipitous discovery of a new therapeutic approach for the treatment of chronic inflammatory disorders based on nanomedicine. This therapeutic approach triggers the formation of extensive antigen- and disease-specific networks of regulatory T and B-cells that efficiently suppress the progression of several different autoimmune disorders, as well as organ transplant rejection, without compromising systemic immunity. Parvus Therapeutics is a clinical stage company that designs, develops and clinically tests pMHC nanomedicines for various disease indications.