SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fountain Therapeutics (“Fountain”), a biopharmaceutical company leveraging proprietary breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and computational modeling to target the biology of cellular resilience, today announced that Thomas Rando, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder and executive chairman of Fountain, is being honored in a ceremony held today in Zurich to receive the prestigious NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award.
The NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award is presented to pioneering scientists who, through their innovative, groundbreaking research, have made a significant contribution to their respective fields and who inspire the world around them. Their bold ideas and unique approaches involve interdisciplinary collaboration and apply a broad range of methods, building bridges across the boundaries of disciplines.
“We would like to congratulate Tom for being recognized with the NOMIS Distinguished Scientist Award,” said Anu Hoey, chief operating and business officer of Fountain. “Tom has been a pioneer and leader in the use of heterochronic parabiosis to study the role of blood and circulating factors in the biology of aging, and his work has demonstrated that factors in young serum can directly reverse many aspects of cellular and tissue aging. We are thrilled to benefit from his insights and groundbreaking research at Fountain for the development of promising innovative therapies for chronic degenerative diseases.”
Dr. Rando is now focused on studying stem cell quiescence—a dormant, highly resilient state that enables long-term survival of stem cells. The research will provide unprecedented detail regarding the molecular regulation of stem cell quiescence as well as molecular insights into a cellular model of the evolutionary trade-off between survival and reproduction, a trade-off that is at the very core of the evolution of species.
Thomas A. Rando
Dr. Rando has more than 20 years of experience in aging research and has published over 150 research articles on stem cell aging and tissue repair. Dr. Rando is the director of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center. At UCLA he is a professor in the Departments of Neurology and Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology. Prior to joining UCLA, Dr. Rando served as the director of the Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Stanford University School of Medicine. While at Stanford, he was a professor of neurology and neurological sciences and deputy director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. Dr. Rando also served as chief of the neurology service and director of the Center for Regeneration, Repair, and Restoration (CTR3) at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System (VAPAHCS), where he was previously director of the Rehabilitation Research and Development Center of Excellence/REAP and Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center. Dr. Rando is a founding director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association clinic at the Stanford Medical Center. He actively serves as editor and board member of numerous scientific journals, including the Journal of Cell Biology, EMBO Journal, PLoS Biology and Aging Cell.
Dr. Rando is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. Over the course of his career, Dr. Rando has received more than 40 award nominations. He is a former Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholar in aging, awarded by the American Federation for Aging Research and a former Ellison Medical Foundation senior scholar in aging. In 2005, he received an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for his groundbreaking research in stem cell biology. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the NIH’s National Institute of Aging, and holds board positions at numerous institutions, including Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing and the Buck Institute for Age Research.
Dr. Rando serves on the scientific advisory board of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including NDLX Health Sciences and Novo Biosciences Inc. He previously served on the scientific advisory board of Fate Therapeutics.
Dr. Rando received a B.A. from Harvard College, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from Harvard University.
About Fountain Therapeutics
Fountain Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company building a pipeline of disease-modifying therapeutics to treat the underlying causes of chronic degenerative diseases. The company uses its deep insight into the biology of aging along with its proprietary AI-driven technology, which leverages recent developments in machine learning and computer vision, to extract cellular features that enable precise modeling of cellular resilience and health. Fueled by the expertise of leaders in aging research and computation, Fountain has turned these insights and technology into an unbiased, data-driven drug discovery and development engine. The company is advancing multiple programs to identify novel compounds, targets and disease biomarkers for the development of therapeutics to help the millions of patients affected by degenerative disease.
For more information, please visit fountaintx.com and follow the company on Twitter @FountainTx or LinkedIn.
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Aljanae Reynolds
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