Central and peripheral nervous system function is built around electrical activity. Neurological and psychiatric diseases and disorders are caused by local neuronal dysfunction, typically either over-active or under-active neural circuits.

Current treatment of neurological and psychiatric diseases and disorders typically involves the use of systemic drugs to address local neuron dysfunction. However, traditional systemic therapeutics for targeted dysfunctions can have limited efficacy due to adverse, off-target side effects.

At Redpin, we are pioneering a novel targeted cell therapy approach to address neural circuit dysfunction. Our technology is designed to selectively activate or silence disease-causing neurons, modulating only dysfunctional neurons while leaving normal functioning cells alone.

Our approach has the potential to deliver effective treatments for a wide range of currently intractable neurological and psychiatric diseases and disorders, bringing much needed help to patients.

Chemogenetics is a ground-breaking approach to selectively control cell function by installing an engineered receptor that renders any targeted cell population sensitive to modulation by an agonist designed to target that receptor. At Redpin, we are building an innovative ion channel-based chemogenetics platform that introduces a new paradigm for tunable, targeted cell therapies.

Ion channels are proteins that are responsible for electrical activity in cells. We are leveraging ion channels as neuromodulation tools to either stimulate under-active neurons or inhibit over-active ones.

Using our synthetic biology platform, we have designed proprietary chimeric ligand-gated ion channels as targeted cell therapies to selectively stimulate or inhibit dysfunctional neuronal circuits implicated in a given disease.

Our ion channel receptors are designed to only modulate neuron activity in the presence of the orally delivered small molecule drug varenicline. Varencline is approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) as an anti-smoking agent. We believe varenicline is particularly attractive for chemogenetic applications in the central nervous system because it is well tolerated by patients at low doses and has excellent brain penetration.

Elma S. Hawkins, Ph.D., MBA

President and Founder

David Bleakman, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer

Nino Devidze, Ph.D.

Head of Translational Sciences

Jeffrey M. Friedman, M.D., Ph.D.

Marilyn M. Simpson Professor, The Rockefeller University; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Scott Sternson, Ph.D.

Group Leader, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Janelia Research Campus

Michael Kaplitt, M.D., Ph.D.

Vice Chair, Research, Neurological Surgery, Professor of Neurological Surgery, Director, Movement Disorders and Pain, Weill Cornell Medicine